PQ 1573 
.025 
1914 
Copy 2 



ICHARD T. HOLBROOK 





MASTER PIERRE 
PATELIN 




A FARCE IN THREE ACTS 



a. W. $tntto'ss Pays 

$me, 50 €znt$ €arf> 



THF AM A70NS Farce in Three Acts. Seven males, five females. 

14 AM* Costumes, modern ; scenery, not difficult. Plays 

a full evening. 

TflE CABINET MINISTER Se^^^TS! 

scenery, three interiors. Plays a full evening. 

HANDY DICK ^ arce k 1 Three Acts. Seven males, four females. 
Costumes, modern ; scenery, two interiors. Plays 
two hours and a half. 

THF fiAY I ORB (MIFX Comed y in Four Acts. Four males, ten 
LllLt UA1 tut I if yVitt f ema i es# Costumes, modern ; scenery, 

two interiors and an exterior. Plays a full evening. 

HIS HftllSF IN ORRFR Comedy in Four Acts. Nine males, four 
il J JIUU1JI4 l\ Vi\vk f ema i es . Costumes, modern ; scenery, 
three interiors. Plays a full evening. 

THF HORRY HftRSF Comedy in Three Acts. Ten males, five 
lllLt livlllll U k*L< fema i es# Costumes, modern; scenery easy. 

Plays two hours and a half. 

IRIS I >rama m Five Acts. Seven males, seven females. Costumes, 
^^^ modern ; scenery, three interiors. Plays a full evening. 

I ABY BOUNTIFUL Play in Four ActS * Eight males > seven fe- 
LtAV I liuuni IVLi maleg Costumes, modern ; scenery, four in- 
teriors, not easy. Plays a full evening. 

I FTTY Drama in Four Acts and an Epilogue. Ten males, five fe- 
^ • * males. Cfostumes, modern ; scenery complicated. Plays a 
full evening 



Sent prepaid on receipt of price by 

Salter f ♦ Rafter & Company 

Wo. 5 Hamilton Place, Boston, Massachusetts 



Master Pierre Patelin 



I 



Master Pierre Patelin 

A Farce in Three Acts 



Composed anonymously about 1464 a. d. 
Englished by 

RICHARD T. HOLBROOK, Ph. D. 



POPULAR EDITION 

Illustrated 



NOTE 

This play may be performed by amateurs without payment 
of royalty and without express permission. The professional 
stage rights, however, are strictly reserved, and permission 
must be obtained from Dr. Holbrook, through Messrs. 
W. H. Baker & Co., 5 Hamilton Place, Boston, Massachusetts. 



BOSTON 

WALTER H. BAKER & CO. 
1914 






Master Pierre Patelin 



CHARACTERS 



Pierre Patelin, the Lawyer ; husband to Guillemette ; 
tall, lean, cleanshaven, lantern-jawed. Aged about 
forty-five. 

Guillaume Joceaulme, the Draper; clean-shaven, with 
a round stolid face ; a short and graceless figure. 
Aged about thirty-five. 

Tibalt Lambkin, the Shepherd ; clean-shaven, with a face 
as stupid as a sheep's except when lighted by an ex- 
pression of guile ; of an unimpo sing stature, hair long 
and unkempt, sunburnt. Aged about eighteen. 

The Judge ; pompous, clean-shaven. Aged between forty 
and fifty. 

Judge's Clerk ; Archers ; Bailiffs, carrying short 
staves; Loiterers. 

Guillemette, Wife to Pierre Patelin. Aged about thirty. 



The First Act. — In Pierre Patelin' s House and at the 

Draper's Shop. 
The Second Act.— The Same. 
The Third Act. — At the Judge's Seat. 

LSee Publisher's Note on Scenery, Costumes,"! 
Properties, and Diagrams of the Stage Setting.J 




Copyright, 1914, by Richard T. Holbrook 

All rights reserved 



JUN -2 1914 

©CI.D 37191 



1 



PEOPLE OF THE PLAY 

[jfa originally produced in its present form at the Bellevue- 

Stratford, in Philadelphia, on April 24, I(?I4) and 

later , May 4, at the Little Theatre, Philadelphia.) 

Master Pierre Patelin, 

Lawyer . . . Mr. William H. Whitney. 
Guillemette, his Wife . . Miss Rosamond Hoyt. 

GUILLAUME JOCEAULME, 

the Draper . . . Mr. J. Bennett Colesberry. 

Tibalt Lambkin, the 

Shepherd . . Mr. Francis J. MacBeath, Jr. 

The Judge . . . Mr. Henry C. Sheppard. 

The Street Crowd is represented by members of the 
1 'Plays and Players ' ' club 



The First Act.— In the Market-place. 
The Second Act.— Patelin' s Dwelling. 
The Third Act. — The Market-place again. 

Time. — Fifteenth Century. 

Mrs. C. Yarnall Abbott. 



Stage Directors . . . \ 



Mr. Henry C. Sheppard. 



Scenery and Costumes after Boutet de Monvel's 
etchings for Patelin and his coloured illustrations for 
Jeanne d' Arc. 



To 
W. S. B. 



C*/r*aiT».»4 BttL 





PATEUN'S HOUSE. 



r *- — i 

• ' ! 


Street 




Street: 


•frer.t/ />-* V 


Wall 

2 


LJ ' \ 

AlTTlJ \ 



DRAPER'S SHOP. 

In the Market PLa.ce. 









i 






/ Window 


Street 


Street 






l_l 

Tall f 10. 

Cawed? 




1 1 


T«U he \ 
\ ^ aTVft ^ F, C .or\\ 

tat ^ rnt ^ 

Steps, 












Jo 


i*e.<± tu»o 

3 





THE JUDGE'S SEAT. 
Jn the Market Places 



Contents 




Publisher's Note 


. xiii-xv 


Preface ...... 


. xvii-xxv 


Setting of the Comedie Franchise 


xxvii-xxix 


Introduction .... 


. xxxi-li 


The Text ...... 


1-90 


Notes on the Text . 


. 91-115 


Notes on the Cuts 


117-121 



List of Illustrations 



The Emblem of Pierre Levet 
Patelin, Counting on His Fingers 
It Is Too Much 
The Draper Visits Patelin 
The Shepherd Comes to Explain 
The Court Scene 
Patelin Tries to Collect His Fee 

xi 



Frontispiece 

. 7 

■ *5 

• 3i 

• 57 
. 6 7 

. 87 



Note 

It is my privilege to announce that within the 
last few days, and coincidently with the perform- 
ance at the Bellevue-Stratford, my friend and 
colleague, Louis Cons, Licencie de FTJniversit6 
de Paris, after some months of research, has 
identified the hitherto unknown author of 
"Maltre Pierre Pathelin" as Guillaume A16cis, 
" le ion moine," author of u Le Blason de Paulses 
Amours." M. Cons' s monograph on this subject 
will be published at an early date. 

E. T. H. 

Bryn Mawr, Penna., 
April 24 t 1914. 



Xll 



Publisher's Note 



The scenery may be of the simplest. A few 
large screens, decorated or not, according to taste 
or circumstances, enclose the stage at the back and 
sides, the sides sloping slightly toward the back, 
as in the diagrams. In the centre of the back is 
a large opening into a recess which contains the 
bed. This opening is covered by curtains which 
can be drawn back. In the centre of the screen 
at the right of the stage is a broad shutter, hinged 
at the top, and arranged to be drawn up by means 
of a pulley. When this is closed its outward side 
is painted to represent a window ; when it has 
been drawn up so as to project from the wall it 
becomes the wooden awning to the open shop- 
front below. Whenever the action passes in 

Patelin's House 
this window is closed ; the bed with its curtains 
appears at the back, there is an entrance used 
down left, and the furniture is disposed as in 
Diagram 1. When the action passes in 

The Draper's Shop 
the aperture at the back is concealed by another 

xiii 



xiv PUBLISHER'S NOTE 

screen set a few feet in front of it, as in the 
Diagram 2, the shutter of the window at the right 
is raised, and the entrance at the left is not used. 
The disposition of this scene is indicated in 
Diagram 2. When the action is transferred to 

The Market-Place 
the shutter of the window is again lowered, a 
small dais for the Judge's seat is placed in front 
of the screen that covers the window at back, and 
the furniture disposed as in Diagram 3. The 
stage settings are thus seen to consist merely of 
the shuffling of a few simple properties, after the 
manner of a pack of cards. They can be arranged 
very easily and rapidly behind the Tableau Cur- 
tains which are drawn for that purpose. 



The Properties needed for this arrangement 
are two figures of saints, carved or painted, on 
pedestals ; an alms-box ; a table ; two chairs ; a 
mirror ; a broom ; a bench ; steps for the Judge's 
seat ; a few rolls of cloth, one of them blue, an- 
other "grey or green" ; a bedstead, a mattress, 
etc. The furniture should be Gothic, or heavy 
and plain. 

The Stage Setting might be made more 
picturesque by a "drop" and two "wings," 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE xv 

reproducing the important features in the etch- 
ings by Boutet de MonveL One side of the 
" drop " could represent the background of the 
bedroom scenes ; the other side could represent 
the background required for the rest. The side- 
wings could also be reversible, so as to represent 
either the Interior or the Street Scenes, the 
Draper's Shop, etc., as described. 

The first scene of Act I can occur in the 
Market-Place, where Patelin and Guillemette 
simply emerge from a crowd of early marketers 
who quietly disappear while Patelin and Guille- 
mette are exchanging their first words. 

The Costumes can be made up from the etch- 
ings by Boutet de Monvel, which are used to 
illustrate the edition of La Farce de Maitre Pathe- 
lin, published in three forms by Libraire Ch. 
Delagrave, 15 Eue Soufflot, Paris, at two, ten and 
forty francs respectively, or from Levet's wood- 
cuts (see the List of Illustrations). It is not neces- 
sary to be too precise as to fashion or colour ; but 
students or costumers who desire accurate and 
detailed information on these two points will 
find it in Boutet de Monvel' s illustrations of his 
Jeanne W Arc, published by E. Plon, Nourrit & 
Oie., 10 rue Garanciere, Paris. 



Prefc 



ace 



All that I have to say at present of Patelin as 
a work of literature will be found in the In- 
troduction or in the Notes on the Text. It is not 
amiss therefore to make here certain remarks of a 
technical nature. 

This translation was made chiefly from the 
oldest known edition of Patelin, printed by Guil- 
laume Le Boy 1 at Lyons, about 1486. About 
November, 1489, 2 Le Boy's Patelin was faithfully 
reprinted, with six excellent illustrative wood- 
cuts, by Pierre Levet, a celebrated Parisian 
printer and publisher whose emblem (accurately 
reproduced from his Patelin) serves as our frontis- 
piece. Of Levet's Patelin, also, only one exemplar 
is now believed to exist. This book, preserved 

1 Ot which the only known exemplar now belongs to 
M. Albert Rosset of Lyons, France. 

2 See my essay on " Patelin in the Oldest Known Editions,' ' 
in Modern Language Notes for March, 1906. It was partly 
by means of the cracks in Levet's emblem that I was 
enabled to determine, without erring by more than a 
month, the date of Levet's edition, 
xvii 



xviii PREFACE 

at the Bibliotheque Rationale in Paris, is a beauti- 
ful specimen of early printing, and is fortunately 
genuine throughout. I say ' i fortunately " because 
nine pages have at some indefinite period been 
lost from the older Patelin by Le Eoy. These are 
now replaced by pen-and-ink counterfeits, de- 
rived from Levet and Beneaut (1490), and exe- 
cuted so skilfully as almost to escape detection. 

From the fifteenth century only one manuscript 
has come down. As this manuscript was copied 
(directly) from Levet' s text, 1 it is necessarily less 
authoritative than either Le Eoy or Levet. Both 
Le Eoy and Levet are imperfect, also, but we 
must rely upon them for the present and always, 
though a critical edition which I expect to 
publish within a year or two should enable 
students to understand the old farce better than 
any or all editions allow us to understand it now. 

It may be interesting to know how Fournier's 
version of this farce is arranged for production at 
the Oomedie Frangaise. It is divided into three 
acts. The first ends with the Draper's brief so- 
liloquy (p. 23). The second act begins, there- 
fore, with Patelin's return to Guillemette (p. 24). 

1 My demonstration of this statement will be published in 
Romania at an early date. 



PREFACE xix 

The next scene, except the words " Hello! 
Master Pierre ! " spoken by the Draper a mo- 
ment after he has knocked at Patelin's door, 
must be omitted. The Draper's soliloquy 
(pp. 42-43) will be uttered before he quits Pate- 
lin's bedroom. 

Pursuing this system, we must omit the Dra- 
per's soliloquy on page 45, though we hear him 
pounding angrily on Patelin's door, and dis- 
tinguish the words "Ho, there! mis' ess: where 
are you hiding 1 " Next, the Draper must speak 
his following lines (p. 54) in the room at Patelin's 
mostly as a soliloquy. 

Act III begins with the interview between the 
Draper and his Shepherd (p. 55). As the 
Shepherd leaves him, the Draper disappears 
within his shop ; then the Shepherd, instead 
of going to Patelin's house and calling, "Is 
any one within ? " meets Patelin as that worthy 
comes strolling across the market-place, and 
accosts him because he recognises by Patelin's 
dress that he is a lawyer. We must now give the 
Sheperd an exit after his last lines on page 64 
("Why, as agreed, sir," etc.) ; he will reappear, 
somewhere in the crowd, about as the Judge 
asks, "Where is the defendant? Is he present 
in person ! " shortly after the beginning of the 



XX PREFACE 

trial scene. From this point onward the piece 
proceeds precisely as it did when it was first per- 
formed, to judge by LeEoy and Levet. 

In the text of my translation hardly any of 
these suggestions for rearrangement occur ; for 
they are purely modern and would often contra- 
dict the other set of stage-directions which are 
reasonably derived from study of the text. These 
are largely my own, though many of them are 
due to my notes on a performance of Fournier's 
version at the Oomedie Frangaise in August, 1904. 

Elsewhere (pages xxvii-xxix) will be found a 
pretty accurate description of the stage-setting 
adopted by the Oomedie Frangaise. 1 Absolute 
accuracy is something I am far from claiming ; 
for while the play was in progress the pit was 
rather dim, and I was too fascinated to be taking 
notes. 

In the oldest texts of Paielin there is but one 
stage-direction (see Notes on the Text, Note v), 
and there is no division into acts or scenes ; nor 
are the verses numbered. 

x See the diagrams and publisher's note (pp. ix, xiii) 
showing another and much less elaborate method of arrang- 
ing the stage. This, I believe, was approximately the plan 
devised for performances of my version at ' l The 47 Work- 
shop" — the dramatic laboratory of Harvard University, 
directed by Prof. Geo. P. Baker — in December, 1913. 



PREFACE xxi 

As to costume very little need be said; for 
M. Boutet de MonveFs sixteen dry-point etch- 
ings show admirably how the various personages 
in our farce would have been dressed about the 
year 1465, and they are delightfully intelligent 
interpretations of the text — therefore doubly val- 
uable to all students of Patelin. I venture to 
suggest that they be studied with particular care 
by persons who undertake to perform this farce. 
In the fourth volume of his work on Le Costume 
Historique, Eacinet gives a lithographic reproduc- 
tion of a fifteenth-century miniature showing 
what colours might be worn by a Judge, his 
Clerk, a Lawyer, and a Bailiff (or Sergent a 
verge), etc., in the second half of the fifteenth 
century. This lithograph is a copy of a French 
manuscript marked "Ancien fonds 9387" and 
preserved at the Bibliotheque Rationale. The 
miniature is probably an accurate representation 
of a court scene of that period. But the court 
sceoe in Patelin may reasonably be supposed to 
occur in a market-place. 

As we learn from the opening conversation be- 
tween Patelin and Guillemette, their clothes are 
threadbare ; and as the Shepherd says (to Pat- 
elin), " even though I be ill clad," we may safely 
assume that his apparel was mostly in rags. 



xxn PREFACE 

The six illustrative woodcuts which Pierre 
Levet published with his Patelin in 1489 are 
offered in facsimile with this translation. My 
researches indicate that these woodcuts were 
made especially for Levet, and were not bor- 
rowed, with little or no sense of fitness, from 
some earlier work, as commonly happened in the 
infancy of printing. They are valuable for two 
reasons : in the first place they are almost con- 
temporaneous with our farce (ca. 1464), and 
show, however crudely, what the illustrator, or 
illustrators (for there may have been two), fan- 
cied to have been the looks of five characters 
whose likes could be observed at any time ; in 
the second place, these woodcuts are, I feel sure, 
the first that were ever made to illustrate for the 
printing-press a comedy composed in a modern 
tongue. Do they prove anything as to the use of 
stage scenery ? Or are we to believe their setting 
is purely conventional, chosen merely because 
the engraver did not care to sketch figures in the 
air ? The question is hard to answer, yet I am 
convinced that the farces were not performed on 
empty platforms; the " serious drama" was 
staged with complicated machinery, and it is 
hardly reasonable to suppose that the farces, 
which grew out of the " serious drama " and 



PREFACE xxiii 

were often performed with it, could have lacked 
all scenery, or that they had, forsooth, no other 
setting than a wall, a floor, a bench and a chair. 
No archaeological proof exists to compel conscien- 
tious moderns to adopt a sceneless stage in per- 
forming medieval comedies ; on the other hand, 
art does not require that they be elaborately 
staged, with gorgeous scenery such as is gener- 
ally used to make Shakespere's plays seem more 
plausible to persons whose imaginations can not 
perceive the temple-haunting martlet amid his 
lov'd mansionry. 

Now, as to this translation. To the best of my 
belief no other English translation of Patelin has 
ever been printed. Thus there was no model, 
either to help or to harm ; nor was there, further- 
more, any adequate dictionary or commentary to 
quicken the pace. I cannot say, as Shelton said of 
his Don Quixote, that I did this work in forty days. 

My first version, printed in 1905, took nearer 
twenty months, and the moment it was out I be- 
gan to discover to what extent I had fallen short. 
If we exclude Maitre Patelin' s ravings in various 
lingos, the whole farce is written in the purest 
fifteenth-century Parisian French. Now, if this 
fifteenth- century French had been used by our 
author to describe nothing but customs with 



xxiv PREFACE 

which we are still familiar, if he had merely em- 
ployed what is now archaic language to express 
ideas common to his time and ours, the task 
would have been only ten times more difficult 
than to translate a play by Bourget or Brieux ; 
he did not : the farce of Maitre Patelin forces us 
to tackle the doubly difficult problem of translat- 
ing both archaic language and archaic thought. 

That is the chief reason why I have felt com- 
pelled to take certain liberties. These need not 
be specified ; whoever desires to know precisely 
what they are has only to compare my transla- 
tion with the texts printed by Le Eoy and Levet. 
I have reformed my original version without fear 
or mercy. Whole lines, many of them pleasing 
enough in our author's graceful verse, would be 
clumsy in any conceivable translation and have 
therefore been radically altered or cut out. 
Again, the original contains a proportion of 
oaths, mostly obsolete, which would be tiresome 
in their modern equivalents as well as in any 
form — a proportion excessive in every sense ; I 
have reduced this proportion and have softened 
a good many of those which remain, to suit the 
style of our time. Furthermore, I have at- 
tempted to make intelligible various passages 
which no one but an archaeologist could under- 



PREFACE xxv 

stand in any precise translation, and, finally, I 
have endeavoured to make this new version thor- 
oughly suitable for performance — that, I believe, 
was also the intention of the original author. 

Certain persons who admire the older classics, 
partly for the sake of the archaic phrases which 
they necessarily contain, have wondered why I 
should have put this medieval farce into modem 
English — into English so modern that it has 
hardly more than an archaic tone. For their 
benefit I will say that my object in making this 
translation was psychological rather than archae- 
ological. "Sire," said the mayor of a village to 
Napoleon, "we have three reasons for not firing 
a salvo in honour of Your Majesty ; the first is 
that we have no cannon. " "You need not give 
the others," responded the Emperor. Similarly, 
I had at least three reasons for not attempting to 
put Maitre Patelin into the colloquial English of 
1460 or even 1660. The first is that such a feat 
would have been impossible ; the second is that 
as the original author wished to portray living 
scenes and living characters, so I have desired to 
give you Patelin, Guillemette, and the rest, alive ; 
and so they have seemed to those who have seen 
them in this form, and heard living English on 
their lips. 



The Stage-Setting of the 
Comedie Fran^aise 

{With some stage-directions) 



ACT I 

A market-place, such as one might have 
seen in a small French town about the year 1465. 
To the left, a low building of which two sides 
are partly visible. This is the shop of the draper 
Guillaume Joceaulme, whose name is written in 
large Gothic letters over the heavy double door. 
Behind this shop, but separated from it by a 
lane, stands a dwelling whose roof rises from sev- 
eral gables to various peaks, joined by deco- 
rative ridges. A little further to the right, in 
the distant background, stands a church tower, 
skirted on the left by a narrow street which is 
lost to view among the houses that lean over it 
and straggle along its sides. In the foreground, 
half concealing the church tower, is a stone 
canopy, or market-cross, whose roof rises steeply 
to a stone tuft, like the flnial of a cathedral, 
xxvii 



xxviii STAGE-SETTING 

In each of the four sides of this structure is a 
niche with a stone seat. The only seat visible 
will be occupied by the Judge during the trial 
scene. The whole canopy rests on masonry so 
disposed as to form six or seven steps on all four 
sides. 

In the foreground to the right, facing the shop 
of Guillaume, is a stone dwelling, and beyond it, 
in the background, are other buildings through 
which runs a street so narrow and tortuous that 
it is soon lost to view in an uncertain mass of 
houses which separate it from the church. 

In the foreground, between the market-cross 
and the Draper's shop, stands a short thick post 
on which rests a box with a slot in it to admit 
the God's-pennies of those who trade in the 
market-place. 

When the curtain rises on this Gothic scene 
the townsfolk are just beginning to bestir them- 
selves for the day's business and the glow of 
morning is visible over the housetops, though 
the light has not illuminated the crooked lanes. 
There are vague noises ; an apprentice opens 
the Draper's shop, brings out a table, and upon 
this counter he sets about arranging some of his 
master's goods in orderly piles. Presently 
Master Pierre Patelin emerges from the street to 



ST A GE-SE TTING xxix 

the left, followed by his wife Guillemette. The 
lawyer is bent in meditation. As he slowly 
enters the market-place he begins to speak to 
Guillemette. 



ACT II 
A room in Patelin's house. In the left wall is 
a door opening on the street. Against the rear 
wall stands a bedstead with a tester whose cur- 
tains reach the floor and may be drawn so as to 
hide the bed completely. Near the bed and the 
door is a great armchair. In the wall to the 
right is a window through which enters a rather 
dim light. Before this window stands a heavy 
wooden table, very plain, and close to the table 
is an ordinary chair. Though the room looks 
tidy enough, everything about it bears witness 
to poverty. 



ACT III 

The Draper's shop is closed ; otherwise the 
same setting as for Act I. 



Introduction 



Patelin belongs to a series of farces which 
had come mysteriously into being as early as 
1277, when a little piece called The Boy and the 
Blind Man was performed at Tournay. 1 Most of 
these farces have been lost, but the hundred and 
fifty or so that happen to survive show clearly 
enough what must have been the character and 
range of all. 

1 If not in 1277, at all events about that time. This tiny 
faroe was discovered by M. Paul Meyer some fifty years 
ago. Of the farces extant two score were found by some 
one rummaging in a Berlin attio about 1840. The Boy and 
the Blind Man owes its preservation to the happy chance 
that some scribe saw fit to copy it at the end of a manu- 
script containing the Roman d- Alexandre. 

This farce is no shapeless embryo, but shows, on the 
contrary, that farce-makers must have been plying their 
trade as early, at least, as 1250. The theme of The Boy and 
the Blind Man is picaresque. An urchin offers to lead a 
blind man, whose trustfulness he rewards by robbery and 
violence ; but, like Moliere's Scapin, the boy contrives to 
make his victim believe that some third person is guilty. 

Two comic plays by Adam de la Hale belong to the same 
period, but they could hardly be called farces. 
xxxi 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

The old farces breathe the scandal and mock- 
ery of their time. Seldom if ever do they rise to 
a height from which man can be seen in his re- 
lation to the world. They reek of a cold sensu- 
ality into which love never enters. They are 
nearly all devoid of the humour which accompan- 
ies a Moliere's insight into the weaknesses of 
man and the vagaries of society. Like most 
modern farces they deal with fads, rather than 
with the great movements of their time. No 
extant farce alludes unmistakably to Jeanne 
d ? Arc : she belonged to an earlier age than that 
in which she was born ; but women with almost 
no redeeming quality abound, and are portrayed 
with a coarseness of feeling and an indelicacy of 
language for which occasional wit cannot atone. 
Graceful irony, irony like that of the Franc- 
archer de Bagnoletj is rare. There are no heroes 
and no heroines, no brave actions and no leaders ; 
but plenty of rogues and fools, whose guile and 
folly give rise to those situations which pica- 
resque literature swarms with and which had 
once delighted the makers of fabliaux. But 
these situations are realistic, almost invariably, 
and modern. Whether the farces are base or 
not, we of the twentieth century should find it 
easier to talk with their authors than with the 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

bards who two or three centuries earlier had sung 
of war and romance. 

When the farces which we are considering were 
most popular, chivalry was rapidly going out of 
fashion ; the modern world of business and 
" practical " ideas was coming in ; the bourgeois 
had ousted the knight, and having money to 
spend, he spent it on purveyors who were ready 
to tell him about himself and his neighbours. 
The town-crier gave him some news, but that was 
not highly spiced ; real journalists were still 
unknown. At the theatre, and there only, could 
he get reflections of life. It mattered little 
whether these reflections were false; whether 
they were due to sheer second-hand glimpses, so 
to speak, cast into disreputable corners, never 
resting on life's broad avenues ; he craved sensa- 
tion, he liked heightened scenes based on contem- 
porary gossip or contemporary facts, flavoured 
with scandal, something credible but seemingly 
not commonplace. 

In the long-winded mysteries he could witness 
the spectacular performance of biblical scenes 
from the Creation to the Crucifixion, or of scenes 
derived from later history and legend. The 
miracle-plays manifested the power of Our Lady 
or of some saint, intervening in behalf of a 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 

medieval or earlier celebrity on the brink of 
perdition. In both these types thoroughly pop- 
ular scenes abounded. Many specimens of the 
" serious drama 7 ' contain comic episodes, differ- 
ent, however, from those of the farces. In the 
Middle Ages the Devil inspired terror, but he 
was also closely akin to the mountebank. Hence 
his presence on the medieval stage. Clad in skins 
of beasts, or in other fantastic garb, he and his 
imps performed antics both fearful and grotesque. 

The moralities were commonly didactic, and 
dealt, like Everyman, with abstractions, such as 
Gluttony and the five senses, Lust, Learning, 
or Better-than-before ; l the sotties are mainly 
claptrap satirical dialogues showing little or no 
plot and composed for clowns or sots, who en- 
livened their garrulous banter by performing 
acrobatic feats. These sotties were written in 
verse, but otherwise they closely resemble the 
medleys of dialogue, song, and gymnastics to be 
found nowadays at almost any music-hall. 

With the sotties and the moralities the farces 

1 When Patelin mockingly suggests that the Draper takes 
him for " Brainless" (p. 83) he is alluding, presumably, to 
a stock figure in this symbolical family, though "Brain- 
less" (Escervele) may have been the nickname of some real 
person familiar to the audiences which witnessed the first 
performances of our farce. 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

have a great deal in conmion, so much, some- 
times, that one can hardly distinguish between 
them j but the farces are generally more like life, 
and there are some reasons for believing that they 
were more popular. 1 In them the bourgeois saw 
images of his existence, and though the reflection 
of reality often resembles the distorted figures 
beheld in some old-fashioned mirror, never before 
had literature come nearer to the facts of life in 
its homely or petty phases. Like some modern 
reprobate who was flattered to find a grossly 
realistic caricature of himself in a comic paper, 
many a citizen of the fifteenth century, happen- 
ing to find himself travestied in a farce, could 
have said, Get ignoble individu, c'estmoi! The 

^his Introduction merely glimpses into the history of 
medieval drama. Mr. E. K. Chambers has gathered an 
immense mass of information in his two volumes on The 
Medieval Stage, Oxford, 1903, and Mr. J, Mortensen's very 
readable book on Le theatre frangais au moyen dge, Paris, 
1903, also deals with facts. Creizenach's Geschichte des 
neuern Dramas is accurate, and comprehensive in the main, 
but does not give the medieval French farces quite so much 
attention as they deserve. In English, so far as I am aware, 
this Introduction is the only study based on an independent 
investigation of all the farces, softies, etc., now extant. Every 
statement of fact made in these twenty-one pages might have 
been accompanied by a foot-note referring to the evidence ; 
but such foot-notes must be reserved for another book. 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 

farces were, in fact, the only form of art that 
enabled him to witness household or other familiar 
scenes, and little as the average truth was like 
the theatrical representation, his enjoyment was 
immense. Through eye and ear he could relish 
depravity with nothing more than a mental par- 
ticipation in the sin. Here was an offset to the 
humdrum round. At church he could hear the 
parish priest chant psalms and pray for the cure 
of souls ; at the theatre he might catch him in 
merrier business, conniving with crafty house- 
wives to gull their husbands, and sinning as often 
as he could get a chance to sin. Here foolish 
rich men were regularly bamboozled by sly l i ga- 
lants " ; merchants cheated and were cheated in 
their turn ; fools gave rein to their folly ; every- 
body was tempted and fell. The whole middle- 
class world, and sometimes nobles or churls, had 
an opportunity to be vividly ridiculous. 

In these old farces vice almost always gets the 
better of virtue ; thinking is mostly scheming ; 
love is mere feigning ; truth is boldly sacrificed 
to mirth, and mirth is the aim of all. No wonder 
that Bossuet, finding the same old esprit gaulois 
alive in Moliere, called him an u infamous 
histrion." Nor is it in the least astonishing 
that a parish priest, and later the Archbishop of 



INTRODUCTION xxxvii 

Paris, refused to allow Moliere's body to be 
buried in consecrated ground. These ecclesiastics 
were merely keeping up a tradition which their 
predecessors had established when the farce- 
makers, indifferent as to the morality of their 
dramatis personce, were charged with undoing the 
work of the Church. There is, indeed, no reason 
to suppose that the old farces increased either 
piety or goodness, however much they may have 
amused their hearers and sharpened their wits. 

He who seeks to build a history of manners 
out of such material must be wary indeed ; for 
the farces display a perverted interest in special 
aspects of vice and folly in the lower and middle 
classes, or their familiars, rather than in all con- 
temporary life. But they record the every-day 
language of their time. Without them to help 
us, we should not know a rich variety of oaths, 
slang, saws, superstitions, and so forth ; had the 
specimens that survive been lost, the habits and 
every-day thoughts of the fourteenth, fifteenth, 
and early sixteenth centuries would be even 
further beyond our ken than now. 

The old farces were always composed in octo- 
syllabic rime, are written in a conversational 
style, and they are never poetical. x They are 

1 Let it be noted also that with hardly an exception they 



xxxviii INTRO D UCTION 

for the most part brief, not a third as long as 
Patelin. Sometimes one finds a neatly constructed 
plot, and ingenious situations are not lacking ; but 
in general they are fiimsily constructed and seem 
more like dramatised anecdotes than like true 
drama ; natural motives are too often absent, and 
their psychology is not so accurate as that which 
our modern farces commonly display, yet the 
dialogue is often lively and produces an adequate 
illusion. 

From what has been said it need not be sup- 
posed that shallowness was universal ; for Villon 
knew himself, at least, and embodied his way- 
ward, passionate, will-less life in lyric verse which 
for vividness and sincerity surpasses all other lyric 
poetry written in his time or in the Middle Ages. 
He is the most gifted poet of the fifteenth century, 
as the author of Patelin is its most gifted dramatist. 
The historian Oommines was another shrewd 
observer of his fellow men, and these are not all. 
Great, too, though the defects of the farces are, 

are anonymous. Whether working singly or in collaboration, 
their authors seem to have regarded this style of writing as 
something impersonal. The " serious " drama (for example, 
certain "mysteries"), lyric poetry, novels, histories, and 
various other kinds of literature, we often find attributed 
in the oldest MSS. or printed editions to some author whose 
name is attached thereto, either openly or secretly. 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 

they show a keener appreciation of reality 
and a greater gift of natural expression than 
had been shown by any other form of medieval 
literature composed in France, save, perhaps, 
the realistic passages in certain nouvelles, in 
the " serious drama/ 7 in Villon, and in Adam de 
la Hale. 

The farces must have arisen pretty early in the 
thirteenth century ; in the fourteenth century, 
and even till the middle of the fifteenth, they 
seem to have languished ; for farce-makers could 
not thrive amid war and waste. The relatively 
prosperous times that followed the Hundred 
Years' War were their Golden Age ; but the 
Eenaissance, with its Plautus and Terence, who 
for some twelve centuries had been preserved by 
monks more capable of copying manuscripts than 
of understanding them, brought new ideals. 
Playwrights began to forsake the market-place 
and the farces grew fewer and fewer, though the 
writing of them never wholly ceased. When 
they lost their hold, most of them perished ; 
hardly a manuscript is left, and only a few were 
chosen when the early printers began to search 
for entertaining matter amid the ruck of the 
Middle Ages. Nevertheless they were by no 
means completely forgotten ; whoever reads 



xl INTRODUCTION 

Moliere carefully will observe, I think, that he 
owes much to these crude pieces, as well as to 
Latin and Italian comedy, and he seems to owe 
something specifically to Maitre Patelin, which 
had not been forgotten in his time. 

Patelin distinctly belongs to the genre, but in 
every regard it excels all other extant farces. 
The author of this piece, whoever he may have 
been 1 and wherever he may have lived, was a 
genius, and when he wrote it he was inspired. 
Eemote though he may ever remain from us, we 
know that he was not remote from his own time. 
He catches its spirit and embodies that spirit in 
such a way as to create at once the spell of illusion 
which is essential to all dramatic art. 

Whether the author of Patelin cared deeply 
about morals is an unsolvable riddle. Michelet 
declares somewhere that Patelin is the " epic of 
an age of rogues " ; unquestionably rogues are its 
heroes and their rascality is its theme. If that 
u practical " monarch Louis XI 2 ever saw Patelin 
performed — and nothing undemonstrable is more 

1 Who was he ? My friend Mr. Louis Cons answers 
" Guillaume Alexis," and proposes to give his reasons for 
this answer at an early date. See foot-note, p. xxxvii, and 
the note on page xii. 

2 See Ernest Kenan's essay on Patelin in his Essais de 
morale et de critique, 1859. 



INTRODUCTION xli 

likely — how keenly he niust have relished its 
common sense, its mirthful and remorseless 
roguery ! We may imagine his laughter as he 
saw one rascal outwit another, until a mere lout, 
a u sheep in clothing, " outwits them all. That 
was something after his own heart. We need not 
regard the five worthies of our farce as disciples 
of Louis XI : they are more than that, for they 
express what is unloveable in that century more 
plainly than does the King. They represent in 
several distinct and ludicrous phases the poverty, 
the greed, the cynical cunning, the selfishness, 
and the grinning depravity characteristic of the 
fifteenth century, at least in France. Patelin is a 
shabby pettifogger j his successful fellow barristers 
are arrayed, as he says, in silks and satins, de 
camelos . . . et de camocas ; but the apparel 
is nothing : the lawyers are mostly rogues. And 
so is our Judge : he cares little about justice and 
he invites Patelin to sup with him, though that 
lawyer has spent a Saturday in the stocks. The 
Draper is both greedy and sly ; the Shepherd is 
a numskull with a highly developed bump of 
villainy. And what is Guillemette f A receiver 
of stolen goods, Not one of these types has any 
active sense of right. Their morality, as Eenan 
says, is to succeed ; their greatest weakness, their 



xlii INTRODUCTION 

only absurdity, is to be outdone. Philippe de 
Commines sums up their ethics in a maxim : 
" Ceulx qui gaignent," says he, " en ont tousjours 
Phonneur." 

Patelin scored an immense success. It had two 
sequels, both worthless, and was often quoted. 
If Guillaume Alexis is not the first to allude, by 
citation, to our farce (why shouldn't he!), the 
earliest known record of it may be found in a 
legal document. This document, a grant of 
pardon issued by Louis XI before Easter, 1469, 
recites that one Jean de Costes, who had been 
employed in the King's chancellery, was drink- 
ing one day with several companions at an inn 
kept by Glaude Sillon at Tours. After supper 
Jean de Costes stretched himself out on a bench 
by the fire, saying, " By God, I am ill ! " ; and, 
as the document tells us, he addressed these words 
to the wife of the aforesaid Glaude Sillon and 
said, " I would fain sleep here, and not go back 
to-day to my lodgings." Hereupon a certain Le 
Danceur (who seems to have started the quarrel 
in which he was killed) went and spoke to the 
aforesaid suppliant as follows : " Jehan de Costes, 
I know you well ; you fancy to play Patelin and 
to feign illness, because you are planning to sleep 
here ? ' (Jehan de Costes, je vous cognoys bien : vous 



INTRODUCTION xliii 

cuidez pateliner et /aire du malade, pour cuider 
couclier ceans). 1 

In a short time the name Patelin had become 
proverbial and the Farce of Patelin had attained 
a vogue unparalleled in the history of the early 
stage and rarely equalled since. Of five editions 
printed between 1485, or thereabouts, and 1500, 
five unique exemplars are known to survive ; 
other editions must have existed. Three or four 
editions published shortly after 1500 are also 
represented by only one exemplar. At least a 
score appeared during the sixteenth century, and 
the popularity of our farce hardly waned till 
French playwrights began, as we have seen, to 
be ashamed of what had once delighted the com- 
mon folk, and set learnedly about imitating Eo- 
man or Italian comedy ; but the esprit gaulois 
could not be quelled, and we find it once more, 
more vigorous than ever and lifted out of its 

1 This legal document gives our terminus ad quern. Our 
terminus a quo is indicated by the Draper's allusion to the 
"great frost" (p. 17). u In the year 1464," writes the 
author of the Chronique du Mont Saint-Michel, "the winter 
was severe, more severe than for thirty years, and the snow- 
falls were deeper than any man could recall. ' ' To this deter- 
mination of dates I shall return in another place, where a 
comparison of the values of the various coins mentioned in 
our text will afford further evidence. 



xliv INTRODUCTION 

wallow of lubricity, though not yet angelically 
pure, in the comedies of Moliere. 

Patelin is not the starting-point of any school, 
but it would be a long task to narrate the history 
of its influence on literature in and out of France. 
Some of its phrases are used by Guillauine 
Alexis, Coquillart, and others. In 1560 Estienne 
Pasquier, having read and reread this " sample ?? 
of the old farces, declared it equal to any Greek, 
Latin, or Italian comedy. Marot seems to have 
read it (ca. 1490), and Eabelais quotes it again 
and again. He speaks of the " noble Patelin," 
who was evidently a rascal after his own heart, 
and we may be sure that Eabelais's famous scene 
between Pan urge and Pantagruel was inspired by 
Patelin. u Epistemon said, ( Parlez vous chris- 
tian, mon ami, ou langaige patelinois f ? ?? (11, 9). 

It was not Eabelais, however, who first carried 
Patelin' s fame across the Channel; for not later 
than 1535, and probably ten years earlier, A 
Hundred Mery Tales and Quiche Answers con- 
tained an anecdote "Of hym that payde his 
dette with crienge bea." l In 1700 a dull dram- 
atist named Brueys composed, or, to speak more 
descriptively, he manufactured his Patelin, co- 
medie, eomposee en trois actes, avec un prologue, et 

1 See Notes on the Text, Note xxxv. 



INTRODUCTION xlv 

trois intermedes, mesles de declamations, de chants 
et de danses : Et representee pour la premiere fois 
sans Prologue & sans intermedes le 4« Juin 1706. } 

Had Monsieur de Brueys been born a humor- 
ist, he would either have written better comedies, 
or none. With Palaprat's assistance, the abbe 
pleased for a while ; that is the best that can be 
said for him. Brueys and his contemporaries 
liked literary monsters. They borrowed and 
muddled, very much as the compilers of mys- 
teries had done in the Middle Ages. Unfailingly 
commonplace, Brueys tells his readers that he had 
culled from the old farce as one might gather 
gold from a dunghill ! We need not wonder that 
the abbe decorated his comedy with a Prologue 
wherein some worn-out deities air his theories of 
the drama. Yet Brueys' s hybrid succeeded, and 
gave birth in its turn, contra naturam, to The 
Village Lawyer, the second version of Patelin to 
be made in England. 

This curtain-raiser, ascribed without evidence 
to the elder Macready, 2 was performed at The 

1 See VAvocat Patelin. Translated by S. F. G. Whitaker, 
London, 1905 ; reviewed in The Evening Post, New York, 
June 12, 1905, and in The Athenseum, London, August 26, 
1905. 

2 See the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xxxv, p. 277. 



xlvi INTRODUCTION 

Haymarket in 1787. The Tillage Lawyer, whose 
hero is called not Patelin but Scout, was printed 
at Dublin in 1792, having been received, so the 
title-page declares, with " Universal Applause'' 
in London and in Dublin. 

Was this little piece published, without regard 
for its author, from one of those unsigned manu- 
scripts which actors use % Or is it possible that 
the author had a scrupulous conscience ? What- 
ever the truth may be, The Village Lawyer is by 
no means so absurd as Brueys's hotchpotch of 
modernised medieval folk and pseudo-antique 
divinities. 

The Village Lawyer was performed at the Park 
Theatre, in New York City, in November, 1801, 
and again in 1808. The elder Jefferson (1774- 
1832) l played the part of Sheepface, who is 
merely Thibaut Agnelet (or " Lambkin"), in his 
second reincarnation. In 1863 one James Maf- 
fitt, a pirate by nature, but a playwright by 
trade, on some marauding voyage, fell upon The 
Village Lawyer. Mrs. Scout and her daughter 
Kate, being no longer useful, were made to walk 
the plank. Scout, known in other days as 

1 Jefferson left England about 1795. Probably he in- 
cluded The Village Lawyer in his repertory because it was 
still popular. 



INTRODUCTION xlvii 

Master Pierre Patelin, or Lawyer Patelin, be- 
came Benjamin Harder list. Maffitt was thus rid 
of any necessity of seeing Kate wedded to 
Charles, the son of Snarl (Brueys's Guillaunie), 
and he needed no more than a week or so to 
shear the legal episode out of The Village Lawyer. 
The Mutton Trial, 1 for thus Maffitt named his 
plagiary, was performed by four members of a 
troop of minstrels, at the American Theatre, a 
New York playhouse, in 1863. The cast of char- 
acters was as follows : 

Sheepface, a Shepherd . . Charles White 
Ben J. Hardcrust, a Lawyer Nelse Seymour 
Old Snarl, a Farmer .... Billy Burke 
Justice James Wambold 

These four actors were probably blackened to 
look like negroes, and perhaps they remained so 
throughout the long and varied performance in 

1 The Mutton Trial \ An Ethiopian Sketch, in Two Scenes \ 
By James Maffitt \ Arranged by Charles White \ The Celebrated 
Ethiopian Comedian \ Author of \ Magic Penny \ Jolly 3Iillers 
[here follows a list of two score pieces] etc., etc. | As first 
Produced at the American Theatre, No. 444 Broadway \ New 
York | etc., etc. A copy of this rare farce, whose existence 
was made known to me by Mr. Brander Matthews, is pre- 
served at the Library of Congress, where it was deposited 
to obtain copyright in 1874. 



xlviii INTRODUCTION 

which The Mutton Trial was but an interlude 
lasting " twenty minutes." That they imitated 
negro manners or negro speech is inconceivable. 

A notion as to the quality of Maffitt's style 
may be derived from the following quotations. 
" Well," says Hardcrust, "here I am, Lawyer 
Hardcrust, with scarcely enough money in my 
clothes to buy a meal of victuals. " And on advis- 
ing Sheepface how to outwit the law, Hardcrust 
speaks as follows: "Well, now understand my 
plan. Any question asked you by the Judge, 
the Court (sic), or the jury (sic), you must an- 
swer it in the language of the old ewes when they 
call their young." As in The Village Lawyer, 
Sheepface responds, "That is my mother tongue." 
In The Village Lawyer, when Scout attempts to 
collect his fee but gets nothing save baa ! , he 
cries out angrily, "What, again! braved by a 



. ?? 



Mongril Cur, a bleating Bellweather, a — , 
in the American piece Hardcrust exclaims, 
"What! am I to be outwitted by a country 
wetherbull ! " Further examples from Maffitt's 
plagiary would only serve to show that the origi- 
nal Patelin, cheapened by Brueys, and after- 
wards by an unknown British hack, fell almost 
to the level of a buffoon, on his third and final 
reincarnation. 



INTRODUCTION xlix 

To retell a long story in few words, the farce 
of Patelin came into being in France about 1464, 
and assuredly it owes nothing to the story of 
Mak, the Thief in what is called " The Shep- 
herds' Play," in the Toivneley Mysteries) its 
origin is lost in the darkness that has so long 
enveloped its author. Patelin is wholly French 
and wholly medieval ; it alludes to nothing 
" classic, n and has nothing whatever to do with 
ancient comedy. Its popularity was immense ; 
by 1520 it had been freely translated into Latin 
by Connibert ; by 1535 it was known in England 
(perhaps, too, in Germany ) and we find one of 
its chief episodes in the Italian comedy Arzigo- 
goto; about 1787 some nameless British play- 
wright borrowed or stole from Brueys's hotch- 
potch (1700) all the plot and many details of The 
Village Lawyer ; about 1863 James Maffitt plun- 
dered The Village Lawyer and called his booty 
The Mutton Trial ; this final deformation of Patelin 
was performed by " Ethiopian " minstrels in 
New York City, some four centuries after the 
original farce had first appeared in France. 
About forty years later (1905) my first transla- 
tion, however crude, made the piece accessible 
in a more accurate form which has been per- 
formed upon various occasions by various 



1 INTRODUCTION 

players, sometimes authorised, sometimes not! 
Now it appears once more in English, " com- 
pletely re vised," approximately four hundred 
and fifty years since it was composed, and ap- 
proximately four hundred and twenty -eight years 
since it was first printed, by Guillaume Le Eoy. 
No other farce written in the Middle Ages, 
and naturally no later comedy, can claim so long 
and varied a history ; yet in a mere sketch not 
half that history can be told, but the popularity 
of this farce is no puzzle : its author hit upon 
an extraordinarily clever plot, 1 and, unlike his 

1 This plot, like most others, was not " created/ ' As 
early as 1370, or thereabouts, Eustache Deschamps had 
composed the so-called Farce de Mestre Trubert, a dramatic 
satire aimed at pettifoggers, or, one might say, at lawyers in 
general ; for the Bar was in ill repute throughout the Mid- 
dle Ages. 

Trubert is hoodwinked by his clent Entroignart (— Cheat- 
em), who asks his advice about the theft of an almond, a 
trifling fact that had led to serious consequences. Having 
got his retainer, Trubert, not altogether unlike Patelin, 
proceeds to enumerate some of the many wiles by which he 
knows how to evade the law. He then suggests a game of 
dice which results in his losing his money and his clothes. 
Similar stories about the Bar were popular, and it is likely 
that the author of Patelin built his legal episode on a like 
anecdote, and that he welded it to the story of some scalawag 
who had cheated a creditor by shamming illness or insanity, 
a frequent occurrence in real life. See vol. vii, pp. 155-174, 



INTRODUCTION li 

contemporaries, he had the genius to tell his 
fable dramatically in charming verse. Like a 
precocious child that has aroused laughter by 
some show of wit, he repeats his jests until they 
begin to stale ; but his insight is keen, and his 
characters are drawn so firmly that each is a 
type, possible in nature, but nowhere else to be 
found in literature. Although close examination 
reveals more than one inconsistency, the illusion 
that he creates betokens a rare imaginative 
power, a clear vision, and so objective a por- 
trayal of that vision that the author nowhere 
gives a genuine clue as to his own personality. 
We may agree with Eenan in thinking the author 
of Patelin a low and heartless jester ; but he betrays 
nothing as to himself, except, perhaps, a tend- 
ency to delight us with humour wantonly cruel ; 
he is not a moraliser but a dramatist, and the 
best dramas are surely those that seem to tell the 
most about other men and the least about their 
authors. 

and vol. xi, pp. 293 and 294, of the works of Deschamps, in 
the edition published by the Societe des Aneiens Textes 
francais. The trick by which Lambkin cheats both the 
Draper and its deviser, Patelin, has numerous close ana- 
logues, some of tbem older than our farce and found among 
the popular anecdotes of various nations. 



The Farce of 

Master Pierre Patelin 



Master Pierre Patelin 



THE FIEST ACT 
SCENE. — At Lawyer Patelin's dwelling. 

Patelin. 

By Saint Mary ! Guillemette, for all my 
pains to pick up something, or bag a little pelf, 
we can't save a penny. Now, I've seen the 
time when I had clients. 

Guillemette. 

Aye, true enough ! I've seen the day when 
everybody must have you to win his suit ; now 
you're called the Hungry but Hopeful one. 

Patelin. 

[As if he had not heard.] What's more — 
and I don't say it to brag — in the whole circuit 
where we hold our sessions there's no one abler, 
except the Mayor. 

3 



4 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[Naively.] Aye, but he has studied a great 
while to be a scholar. 

Patelin. 

Whose case ever lags, if I set about it ? And 
yet I don't call myself a scholar ; but I'll 
venture to say that I can chant by the book 
with our priest as well as if I'd been as long in 
school as Charlemaine in Spain ! 

GUILLEMETTE. 

What use is that to us ? Not a rap ! We're 
all but starved ; our clothes are all holes, and 
there's no telling where new ones are to come 
from. Ha ! a fig for all you know ! 

Patelin. 

Tush, tush ! Upon my conscience, if I care 
to set my wits at work, I shall find a way to get 
some finery. Please God, we shall see better 
days. If I stick to business, they'll not find 
my equal. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Aye, that they won't ! At cheating you're a 
masterhand. 

Patelin. 
At regular law ! 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 5 

GUILLEMETTE. 

At gulling, you mean. Oh, I know what 
I'm talking*about ; for, to tell the truth, though 
you've neither education nor common sense, 
you're reckoned about the sliest rascal in the 
whole parish. 

PATELIjtf. 

Nobody can beat me at handling cases. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Heaven save me ! You mean at plucking 
gulls. They say so anyhow. 

Patelist. 

And so they do of those who sport their silks 
and satins, and talk of being barristers ; but 
they're not ! Enough of this prattle : I'm go- 
ing to market. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[Astonished.'] To market ? 

Patelin. 

[As if humming a verse of some old ditty '.] 
Yes, " Going to market, my pretty maid" 
Now, suppose I buy a strip of cloth, or some 
other trifle for household use ? . . . Our 
clothes are nothing but rags. 



6 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

GUILLEMETTE. 

You're stoney broke. What can you do 
there ? 

Patelin. 

[Laying his forefinger on his nose and wink- 
ing craftily.'] That's telling! If I fail, my 
dear, to bring home cloth enough for both of 
us, and to spare, then I'm a fibber ! [Play- 
fully surveying Guillemette.] What colour 
suits you best ? A greenish gray ? Or Brussels 
cloth? Or what? 

Guillemette. 

Whatever you can get. Borrowers must not 
be choosers. 

Patelijst. 

[Counting on his fingers.] For you, two 
yards and a half, and for me, three, or rather, 
four. That makes . . . 

Guillemette. 

Who the mischief will trust you with this 
cloth ? 

PATELIN. 

Leave that tome ! They'll trust me, beyond 
a doubt, — and be paid on Doomsday; for it 
won't be sooner. 




pout qucfque paitte que ie me$e 
BcaQafletnammafftt 
ftousncpouonsrietj amaffcs: 
otSijwquewuomjjbps 

Patelin, counting on his fingers 



8 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Go along, my lamb ; by now somebody else 
may have it on. 

Patelin. 

[Almost to himself, as he walks slowly away.] 
I'll buy either gray or green, and for an under- 
garment, Guillemette, I want three-quarters, or 
a whole yard of fine dark goods. 

Guillemette. 

[Shaking her head.] God help me! so you 
do. Be off with you! [Calling, as he disap- 
pears.] And if any one stands treat don't 
refuse him. 

Patelin. 
Take good care of everything ! [Exit. 

Guillemette. 

[Shaking her head skeptically, then uttering an 
exclamation, half oath, half sigh.] What mer- 
chant . . . ? [Brightening.] Oh ! I hope 
he can get away with it ! 

TABLEAU CURTAIN 

[The curtain is drawn on the shop of 

GUILLAUME JOCEAULME, DRAPER. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 9 

Patelin. 
{Peering into the Draper's shop.] Not 
there ? . . . H'ni ! Yes, there he is. . . . 
Aye, he's busy with his goods. [ While Pate- 
lin is reconnoitring, the Draper emerges and 
lays several rolls of goods on his counter. Then, 
on looking up, he spies Patelin, who greets him 
with a beguiling smile.'] My dear sir, God bless 
you! 

Guillaume Joceaulme, Draper. 
And give you joy ! 

Patelin. 

{Leaning his hands on the counter.'] I've 
been longing to see you, Guillaume. How's 
your health ? You're feeling fine ? 

The Draper. 
Aye, that I am ! 

Patelin. 
{Holding out his hand.] There ! {A pause.] 
How goes it ? 

The Draper. 
Why, first rate ! . . . And how are you ? 

Patelist. 
{Giving the Draper a friendly clap on the 
shoulder.] By Saint Peter, never better ! 
> . . So you're feeling cheerful, eh ? 



IO MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

The Deapee. 
To be sure. But merchants, you must know, 
have their troubles. 

Patelin. 

How is business ? It yields enough, I trust, 
to keep the pot a-boiling ? 

The Deapee. 
Afore Heaven, my good sir, I hardly know. 
{Imitating the cluck of a dri/uer to his horse.'] 
I manage to get along ! [He sighs. 

Patelin. 
[In a reminiscent revery.] Ah, he was a 
knowing one ! — your father was, I mean. God 
rest his soul! [Scanning the Deapee with 
amazement'] I can hardly believe I'm not 
looking at him now! What a merchant he 
was ! and clever ? . . . [ Waving his hand 
in such a way as to suggest the almost limitless 
ability of the elder Joceaulme.] I swear, you're 
the very picture of him. ... If God was 
ever moved to pity, may he grant your father 
his soul's pardon ! 

[ Takes off his hat and glances piously 

toward heaven. The Deapee follotvs 

suit. 

The Deapee. 

[Sanctimoniously.] Amen ! Through his 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN II 

mercy! And ours, too, when it shall please 
him ! [Both replace their hats. 

Patelin. 

[ With a touch of melancholy.'] Ah, yes ! 
Many a time he foretold me the days that 
we are come to. I've often thought of it. 
[After a slight pause.] He was one of the 
good . . . 

The Draper. 

[Interrupting Patelin's reminiscences by 
offering him a seat.] Do sit down, sir. I 
should have asked you before. [Self -reproach- 
ful.] A thousand pardons ! 

Patelin. 

[As if his own comfort were of no importance?^ 
Tut, tut, man ! I'm all right. . . . He 
used to . . . 

[Another interruption by the Draper, 
who, in his zeal to show good manners 
to a prospective customer, leans over his 
counter as far as he can, grasps Pat- 
elijst by the shoulders, and endeavours 
to force him to sit down. 



The Draper. 



Oh, do sit down. 



12 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

Patelin. 

[ Yielding^] Gladly. [A short pause, after 
which Patelin blithely resumes his yarn."] 
" Oh," says he to me, " you'll see marvelous 
things " ! . . . I'll take my oath ! ears, 
nose, mouth, eyes, — no child was ever so like 
his father. [Pointing'] That dimpled chin! 
Why, it's him to a dot ! I can't imagine how 
ever Nature made two so similar faces ! Why, 
look ! If you had both been spat against a wall 
in the selfsame manner and in one array, you 
wouldn't differ by a hair. But, sir, good Lau- 
rentia, your step-aunt, is she still living ? 

The Draper. 

[Mystified.] Why, yes ! 

Patelhst. 
[Rising.] How comely she seemed to me, 
and tall, and straight, and full of graces ! . . . 
And you take after her in figure, as if they'd 
copied her. No family hereabouts comes up to 
yours for likenesses. The more I see you, 
. . . Bless my soul ! [Pointing to a mirror^] 
Look at yourself. You're looking at your 
father! [Clapping the Draper on the bach 
with jovial familiarity.] You resemble him 
closer than a drop of water ! . . . What a 
mettlesome blade he was ! the worthy man, — 
and trusted every one. Heaven forgive him ! 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN I 3 

He always used to laugh so heartily with me. 
Would to God more people resembled him ! 
There'd be less wickedness. [Feeling a piece 
of cloth.'] How well made this cloth is ! how 
smooth it is, and soft, and nicely woven ! 

The Draper. 

{Proudly.'] I had it made to order from the 
wool of my own flock. 

Patelin. 

{Overflowing with admiration.] You don't 
say so ! What a manager you are ! [Jocidarly.] 
It's your father all over again. Blood will tell ! 
. . . [Awestruck.] You're always, always 
busy. 

The Draper. 

{Solemnly.] One must be ! To get a living 
a man must be shrewd and enterprising. 

[He looks at Patelin, who nods assent. 

Pateliist. 

[Hamdling another piece of goods.] Was this 
piece dyed in the wool? It's as strong as 
leather. 

The Draper. 

[Showing off the weave of his goods.] That's 
Rouen goods, and well fulled, I promise you. 



14 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

Patelin. 
Now, upon my word, I'm caught by that ; I 
had no thought of getting cloth when I came ; 
by my soul, I hadn't. I'd laid aside some four 
score crowns for an investment ; but twenty or 
thirty of them will fall to you; I see that 
plainly, for the colour is so pleasing I can't resist 
it. [Sighs, as if feeling a rapture akin to pain. 

The Draper. 
Crowns, you say ? Now can it be that your 
borrowers would take less ? 

Patelin. 
Why, yes, if I chose. It makes no difference 
what sort of money's paid. [Picking up the 
cloth again.'] What kind of goods is this, you 
say ? . . . The more I see it, the sillier it 
makes me. I must have a coat of that, — and 
another for my wife. 

The Draper. 
Cloth costs like holy oil. You shall have 
some, if you like. Ten or twenty francs are 
sunk so quickly ! 

Patelin*. 
I don't care: give me my money's worth. 
[ Whispering in the Draper's ear.] I know 
of another coin or two that nobody ever got a 
smell of. 



2Deaaftftop 

tcfaappitt 

$a$ou&wfcam& 
commmtfc feap eflencf est 



ceft pitet pae fa gwnt fnriffifts 




//V 2*00 much ! 



1 6 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

The Draper. 
You don't say so ! I'm glad to hear it. 

Patelin. 
In a word, I'm hot for this piece, and have 
some I must. 

The Draper. 
Right ! But first how much do you want ? 
. . . Though you hadn't a brass farthing, 
the whole pile is at your service. 

Patelin. 
[Gazing rather absent-mindedly at the cloth.'] 
I know that well, thank you. 

The Draper. 
You might like some of this sky-coloured 
stuff? 

Patelin. 
First, how much is a single yard to cost ? 
[On saying this, Patelust holds up a penny so 
that the Draper may get a good look at it.~] 
Here's a penny to seal the bargain in God's 
name; God's share shall be paid first: that 
stands to reason. 

[Piously doffs his hat ? strides solemnly 
to a box set up in the market-place for 
receiving God?s-pennies, drops the coin 
in, and returns to the Draper. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 1 7 

The Draper. 

That's the way to talk ! You want the 
bottom price? 

Patelin. 

Yes. 

The Draper. 

[Decisively.'] It will cost you four and 
twenty pence a yard. 

Patelin. 
Go to ! Four and twenty pence ! Heaven 



save us : 



The Draper. 



{Laying his hand on his heart.] I cross my 
heart ! it cost me every whit of that, and I 
can't afford to lose. 

* Patelin. 
Lord ! it's too much. 

The Draper. 

You'd never believe how cloth has risen ! 
This winter the live stock all perished in the 
great frost. 

Pateliis". 

But twenty pence ! twenty pence ! 



1 8 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

The Draper. 

No, sir ! Twenty-four. Not a farthing less ! 
Wait till Saturday and you shall see what it's 
worth. Wool on the fleece, of which there 
used to be a plenty, cost me on Saint Maude- 
lejoie's day — my oath on it — just twice what 
it used to cost. 

Patelin. 

Very well then ! I'll buy without further 
haggling. Come, measure off ! 

The Draper. 
And pray how much must you have ? 

Patelin. 
That is easy to answer. What is the width ? 

The Draper. 

Brussels width. 

PATELTlSr. 

[As if to himself, and cocking his head with- 
out looking at the Draper.] For me, three 
yards, and for her — she's tall [making a gesture 
as if he -were laying his hand on the head of an 
imaginary Guillemette], two and a half. In 
all, six yards. . . . Why, no ; that's not 
right ! How stupid of me ! Let's see. 

The Draper. 
There wants but half a yard to make the six. 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 1 9 

Patelin. 

Give me the even six, then. I need a hat as 
well. 

The Deapee. 

{Pointing to the other end of his strip of 
cloth.'] Take hold there. We'll measure. 
Here they are, and no scrimping. [He meas- 
ures, and each time he lets go, Patelin cheats 
by pulling the cloth a little toward himself ?± 
One, . . . and two, . . . and three, 
. . . and four, . . . and five, . . . 
and six ! 

Patelitst. 
By Saint Peter ! Measured close ! 

The Deapee. 

[Looking at PATELIN, then turning his ell in 
the other direction. Naively '.] Shall I meas- 
ure back again ? 

Patelhst. 

[ With cheerful disdain^ Oh, dear no ! 
There's always a little gain or loss. How 
much does it all amount to ? 

The Deapee. 

Let's see. At four and twenty pence, each, 
— for the six yards, nine francs. 



20 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

Patelin. 

[Aside.] Hm ! Here goes ! [To the Dra- 
per.] Six crowns ? 

The Draper. 
Yes. 

Patelin. 

Now, sir, will you trust me for 'em ? . . . 
until presently, when you come? [The Dra- 
per shows symptoms of suspicion.] No, I don't 
mean "trust." I'll pay cash — gold — or any- 
thing you say — at my house. 

The Draper. 
[ Ungraciously.'] That's off my road. 

Patelin. 

[With playful irony.] By my lord Saint 
Giles, now you're telling gospel truth! Off 
your road ! That's it ! You're never ready 
to drink at my house, but this is the time you 
shall ! 

The Draper. 

Good Lord ! I'm always drinking ! [After 
a moment's hesitation.] I'll come ; but let me 
tell you it's against my principles to give credit 
on 2, first sale, like this. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 21 

Patelin. 

What if I pay for it, not in silver or copper, 
but in good yellow coin? {Craftily .] Oho! 
and you must have a bite of that goose my wife 
is roasting ! ' 

The Deaper. 

[Aside.] The man drives me mad. [Aloud.] 
Go on ! Away ! I will follow you, and bring 
the cloth. 

PATELm. 

[ Who by this time has picked up the bundle 
of goods.] Not at all ! Not at all ! It's no 
trouble. It isn't heavy ; I can carry it myself. 
See ! Under my arm. . . . So ! 

The Deapee. 
[Trying to recover his property.] ISTo, in- 
deed, sir! it would look better for me to 
bring it. 

Patelhst. 
[Tucking the cloth into his long gown.] I'll 
be hanged if you do ! See how snug it lies, 
here, under my elbow. What a jolly hump it 
will give me ! Ah ! now it's all right ! [ With 
mock hilarity.] We'll have a fling before you 
leave. 

The Deapee. 

And I shall get my money as soon as I've 
arrived ? 



22 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

Patelin. 
You shall that ! But no ! First you shall 
dine ! I'm glad I have no cash about me now. 
[Archly.] At least you'll come and try my 
wine ; now won't you ? When your late fa- 
ther went by my house he used to sing out, 
" Hullo, friend ! " or, " What's the good word ? " 
or, " How do you do ? " But you don't care a 
straw for poor folk, you rich men ! 

The Deaper. 
[Flattered but deprecatory.'] Oh, now, see 
here ; we're the poor ones ! 

Patelin. 
[Laughing incredulously.] Whew ! Well, 
good-bye, good-bye ! Turn up soon, and we'll 
have a good drink. Count on that. 

The Draper. 
All right ! Go ahead, then, and see that I'm 
paid in gold ! 

[Pateliist starts homeward. The Dra- 
per disappears within his shop. 

Patelin. 
[Crosses to Jj. of themarlcet-place.] Gold! H'm! 
Gold ! The devil ! I made no slips that time ! 
[Overcome by a sense of immense absurdity, 
Patelust stops once or twice to laugh gaily and 
derisively at the mere idea of paying anything 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 23 

— especially in gold.'] No ! gold ! I'd see him 
hanged. [Chuckling.] He set his own price, 
but he shall get mine ! He must have gold, 
must he ? He shall get it — ha ! ha ! Would 
he might run without stopping till he's paid ! 
By Saint John, he'd travel further than from 
here to Pampeluna ! 

[Enters the alley L. U. and disappears. 

The Draper. 

[Coming out again.] Those crowns of his — 

I'll take care of them ! It takes two to make a 

bargain. That scalawag pays four and twenty 

pence a yard for cloth that's not worth twenty ! 



CURTAIN 



THE SECOND ACT 

SCENE I. — At Pateliist's. Guillemette is 

sitting near the window and facing it. 
On her lap lies a garment which she is 
patching. Presently the door is softly 
opened and Patelin looks in. Seeing that 
Guillemette's hack is turned, and that 
she is unaware of his presence, he steals 
toward her, grinning as he thinks what a 
surprise she is about to get. Suddenly, 
when he is quite close, she hears him and 
turns round with a start. 

Patelik. 
{Archly, in tone of triumph^ Guess what 
I've got ! 

Guillemette. 
[Startled.] What ? 

Patelin. 
How about that old gown of yours ? 

Guillemette. 

As if you didn't know ! What do you want 
it for ? 

Pateliist. 
Nothing ! nothing ! See ! 

[He whips the roll of goods from under 
24 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 25 

his gown and flaunts it in the face of 
the astonished Guillemette. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Holy Mother ! Who's your client ? [A little 
frightened,'] What scrape have we got into 
now ? Dear ! dear ! and who's to pay for it ? 

PATELIN. 

Pay for it? By Saint John, it's paid for. 
The chap who sold me that isn't crazy, my pet, 
oh, no ! Well fleeced, say I ! The rascally cur- 
mudgeon ! Served him right ! 

Guillemette. 
But what did it cost ? 

Patelhst. 

Cost ? Nothing ! Don't worry ; it's paid for. 

Guillemette. 
Paid for ? How ? You hadn't a penny. 

Patelin. 
[Mocking.'] Oh, yes, I had — [Gesture] one. 

Guillemette. 
Oh, come now ! You swore to pay, or you 
gave a note. That's how you came by it ! And 
when the note falls due they'll come and seize 
our things and carry off everything we have. 



26 MASTER PIERRE FATELIN 

Patelin. 
{Reassuringly^ Upon my word, I gave only 
a penny for it all. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Benedicite Maria ! A penny ? Impossible ! 
Patelik. 

{Leaning toward 7ier.'] Here ! Pluck out this 
eye, if he got more, or if he gets more, no mat- 
ter what tune he sings. 

Guillemette. 
But who is he, anyhow ? 

Patelhst. 
4. numskull called Guillaume, — Guillaume 
Joceaulme ; since you must know. 

Guillemette. 
But how came you to get it for a penny? 
What was your game ? 

Pateliist. 
It was for God's penny ; and yet, had I said, 
" Let's bind the bargain with a drink," I'd have 
kept my penny. Anyhow, 'twas well worked. 
God and he shall share that penny, if they care 
to ; for it is all they shall get, no matter how 
they carry on. 

Guillemette. 
How came he to trust you ? he's such a surly 
beggar. 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 27 

Patelin. 
Dash me if I didn't make him out such a 
noble lord that he almost gave it me. I told 
him what a jewel his late father was. "Ah, 
brother," says I, "what good stock you come 
of ! No family hereabouts," says I, " compares 
with yours for virtues," but drat me! what 
riffraff ! The most ill-tempered rabble, I sup- 
pose, in all this kingdom. "Guillaume, my 
friend," says I, " what a likeness you do bear 
your good father ! " Lord ! how I heaped it 
on ! And meanwhile I tucked in something 
about woollens. "And then," says I, "how 
kind he was about trusting folks, and no airs ! 
You're he," says I, " his spitten image ! " But 
you might have hauled the teeth out of that 
rascally old porpoise, his late father, or his 
monkey of a son, before they'd trust a fellow 
with as much as that ! {snapping his fingers'] 
or even be polite. Anyhow, I made such an 
ado and talked so much that he trusted me 
with six yards. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Yes, and he'll never get them back. 

Patelin. 
[Derisively.] Get them back ? [Pause.] Get 
the devil back ! 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[Laughing.] Yes, the Crow got his cheese 



28 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

back, didn't he? — when old Eenard the Fox 
persuaded him to drop it from his beak to sing 
a song with his lovely voice. Oh ! he'll get it 
back all right. [She laughs derisively. 

Patelin. 
Listen ! He's coming to eat some goose, but 
there's no goose here. Of course he'll be bray- 
ing for his money on the spot ; now here's the 
thing ! I'll lie on my bed, and play sick ; then, 
when he comes, you'll say, " Sh ! speak low ! " 
Then you must groan and pull a long face. 
" Alas ! " (you'll say) " he fell sick these two 
months past," — or say six weeks, — and if he 
cries, " That's all twaddle, for he's just been 
at my shop," you must say, " Alas ! this is no 
time to fool ! " Then let me pipe him a little 
tune, for music is all he shall get. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Trust me to play the game, — but if you slip 
up again, you may smart for it : you'll catch it 
worse than the other time. 

Patelin. 
Hush now ! I know what I'm about. Do as 
I say. 

Guillemette. 
For goodness' sake remember that Saturday 
they put you in the stocks ! Eemember how 
they jeered at you. 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 29 

Patelik. 
Stop your chatter : he'll be here before we 
know it. That cloth must stay with us. {Hid- 
ing it under the mattress.'] Now ! [Clambers 
into bed, rapidly strips himself to his under- 
clothes^ and dons a very long nightgown, and a 
long pointed white nightcap vnth a long tassel 
on it. He then removes his shoes and stockings. 
As each garment is removed, it is flung out be- 
tween the bed curtains.'] I'm going to bed. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

{Laughing at his burlesque preparations^ 
Go ahead ! 

Patelen". 
[ Under the bedclothes^] No laughing, now ! 

GUILLEMETTE. 

{As she draws the bed curtains close together?^ 
Well, rather not ! Just watch me weep ! 

Patelekt. 

Mind, now. No flinching, or he'll see what's 
up. 

{A knocking is heard at the door. Guil- 
LEMETTE opens it an inch or two and 
peeps out, then opens it wide for the 
Deapee, and steps back. 

The Deapee. 
Hello ! Master Pierre ! 



30 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

GUTLLEMETTE. 

{Laying her finger on her lips.] Oh, sir, if 
you have anything to say, for mercy's sake speak 
lower ! 

The Draper. 
God keep you, mistress ! 

Guillemette. 
Oh, not so loud ! 

The Draper. 
[Astonished and puzzled.] Huh? What's 
the matter ? 

Guillemette. 
[Feigning amazement] Bless my soul ! 

The Draper. 
Where is he ? 

Guillemette. 
Alas ! Where should he be ? 

The Draper. 
The i . . Who? 

Guillemette. 
Ah, sir, how unkind! "Where is he?" 
May God in his mercy know ! He has lain on 
the very same spot, poor martyr, without budg- 
ing, for eleven weeks. 




<25tttffemette 

j^efaeflcc 

pout Sieii fe Sous Soufgs rfaj 8i?e 

patfcepfuefiae 

2le8iapptec 
iDi^u Sous gatt Bams 

Cfaiffemette 
$o.pfuefo*6 

Z/£<2 Draper visits Patelin 



32 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

The Draper. 
[Staring open-mouthed^ Who's this ? 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[ Whispering in the Draper's ear.~] Excuse 
me : I mustn't raise my voice. I believe he's 
resting. He's a little drowsy. Alas ! he's so 
done up, poor man ! 

The Draper. 
[In amazement.'] Who ? 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Macter Pierre. 

The Draper. 

[Indignantly.'] Whew ! And didn't he come 
to buy six yards of cloth, just now ? 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Who? He? 

The Draper. 

He came from my shop not a quarter of an 
hour ago. Hurry ! I'm wasting time. Come ! 
No more nonsense ! My money ! 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Oh, stop your joking ! This is no time for 
jokes. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 33 

The Draper. 

[ Waving his arms.'] Here ! My money ! 
Are you crazy ? I want nine francs. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Oh, Guillaume ! It's no time for fooling. 
Go along and trifle with your simpletons, if 
you're out for a lark. 

The Draper. 

[Angrily.] I'll have nine francs, or I'll be 
hanged ! 

Guillemette. 

[Trying to keep from laughing, while she 
wipes away imaginary tears.] Oh, dear ! sir, 
not everybody is so fond of laughter and clap- 
trap as you are. 

The Draper. 
[Beseechingly.] Please, no joking now ; 
fetch me Master Pierre. 

Guillemette. 
Bad luck to you ! What ? To-day ? 

The Draper. 

[Gesticulating angrily.] Isn't this place, 
here, where I am, the house of Master Pierre 
Patelin ? 



34 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Yes ! And may they stick you into bedlam ! 
{crossing herself, then in a whisper'] — but not 
me! Sh! 

The Draper. 
Devil take it ! [Sarcastic. ~\ Have I no right 
to ask ? 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[Crossing herself again, as if the devil might 
really appear / then laying her fingers on her 
lips and glancirig mysteriously toward the bed.] 
God bless my soul ! Sh ! Lower, unless you 
must wake him up ! 

The Draper. 
[Very satirical.] " Lower"? How "lower"? 
Shall I whisper it down in your ear ? at the 
bottom of the well ? or in the cellar ? 

GUILLEMETTE. 

My goodness ! What a babbler you are ! 

The Draper. 
[In petulant protestation.] Hang it all! 
Now, let me tell you, if you expect me to 
whisper. . . . [Angrily.] Say now ! As 
for such wrangling, I'm not used to it. [Bear- 
ing on each word.] The truth is that Master 
Pierre took six yards of cloth to-day. 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 35 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[Shrilly.] Huh? Oh, come! To-day? 
Well, I never ! Look here, now ! Took 
what ? . . . Hang me, if it isn't the sober 
truth ! He's in such a plight, poor man, that 
he hasn't left his bed for eleven weeks — I be- 
lieve you're making sport of us. Now, is there 
any reason in it ? You clear out of my house ! 
[ Wringing her hands.] Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! 

The Draper. 

You were telling me to speak so low ! Holy 
Mother ! you are shrieking ! 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[Almost in a tohisper.] Upon my soul, it's 
you who are making all the noise ! 

The Draper. 
Look here! I must be off. Handover . . . 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[Forgetting herself and letting her voice rise 
to a high key.] Sh ! Speak low, will you ! 

The Draper. 

But it's you who'll rouse him ! Good Lord ! 
You talk ten times louder than I do ! [Em- 
phatically^ We're wasting time. 



36 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Eh ? What is this ? Are you cracked ? or 
have you been drinking ? In heaven's name ! 

The Draper. 
" Drinking " ? My word ! There's a pretty 
question ! 

GrUILLEMETTE. 

Oh, dear ! Speak lower ! 

The Deaper. 
[Meekly.] I ask payment for six yards of 
cloth, lady, — for pity's sake. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

It's all in your eye ! And who did you give 
it to? 

The Draper. 
To himself. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Fine trim he's in for buying cloth ! Alas ! 
he can't budge. [Begins to sob ; the Draper 
thirties hard!\ He's in no need of clothes ; 
never more will he be dressed in any garment, 
but a white one, nor leave the spot where he's 
lying unless he goes feet first. 

The Draper. 
This must have happened since sunrise, then ; 
for I'm sure I talked with him. 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 37 

GlJILLEMETTE. 

[Stopping her ears.] Your voice is so shrill ! 
Be quiet, for pity's sake ! 

The Draper. 

[In a perfect ta?itrum.~] It's you, upon my 
oath ! It's you ! Oh, curses ! This is torment. 
If some one paid me, I would go my way. 
Afore Heaven ! It's always the way. When- 
ever I have trusted, this is what I've got for it. 

Pateli^. 

[As if lie had just awakened^] Guillemette ! 
A little rose-water ! Prop me up ! Tuck me in 
behind ! Pah ! Xo one's listening. The ewer ! 
A drink ! Bub the soles of my feet ! 

The Draper. 
I hear him there. 

Guillemette. 
You do. 

Pateli^". 

[In his nightcap* peers out between the cur- 
tains and shouts to Guillemette.] Ha, wretch ! 
come here ! Who told you to open those win- 
dows ? Come, cover me ! Drive these black 
men away ! Marmara, carimari, carimara ! 
Away with them ! away ! 



38 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[To Patelin.] What's this ? How you be- 
have ! Are you beside yourself ? 

Patelik. 
[Slowly getting out of bed and pointing, as he 
does so, toward the rafters. To the Draper.] 
Thou canst not see what I perceive. There is 
a black monk — flying. Catch him ! Give him 
a stole! [Approaching the Draper, who re- 
treats backward, he spits like a cat, turning his 
fingers into claws and striking as if he were 
going to scratch the Draper's eyes out.] The 
cat ! the cat ! meaow ! [Pointing, and seem- 
ing to follow the flight of the imaginary monk.] 
Up, up, he goes ! 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Oh, what is this ? Ain't you ashamed ! 
Dear, dear! this hubbub has upset him. 

Patelin. 
[Returning to bed cmd falling back on his 
pillow, exhausted. To Guillemette, who is 
bending over him.~\ Those physicians have 
killed me with these hotchpotches they've 
made me drink. And yet, to believe them, 
it's as simple as moulding wax. 

Guillemette. 
[To the Draper.] Oh ! Have a look at him, 
sir ; he's such a sufferer. 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 39 

The Draper. 
You don't mean to say he's fallen sick since 
just now, when he came from market ? 

GUILLEMETTE. 

From market ? 

The Draper. 

Yes, ma'am. I think he was there. [To 
Patelijst.] I want my money for the cloth I 
let you have, Master Pierre. 

Patelijst. 

[Pretending to take the DRAPER/br a physi- 
cian^ Ho, Doctor John ! . . . Can't you 
do something to help me ? Shall I take an- 
other dose ? 

The Draper. 

Huh ? How do I know ? What business is 
it of mine? It's nine francs I want, or six 
crowns. 

Patelhst. 

These three black little pointed things, — I 
believe you call 'em " pills." They have ruined 
my jaws. For heaven's sake, Doctor John, 
no more of them ! Pah ! they're so bitter ! 
They've made me let go of everything. 

The Draper. 
They have not ! by my father's soul ! You 
haven't let go of my nine francs. 



40 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[Half aside.'] Hang them ! these folks who 
are always meddling. ["Shooing" the indig- 
nant but helpless Deapee.] Away with you, 
by all the devils ! 

The Deapee. 

By the Lord who made me, I will have my 
cloth, or my nine francs ! 

Patelin. 

[To the Deapee, still pretending to take him 
for "Doctor John."] And my symptoms, do 
they not show, perchance, that I am dying ? 
[To Guillemette.] Alas, although he stays, 
don't let me die ! 

Guillemette. 

[To the Deapee.] Begone ! Isn't it wicked 
to be splitting his ears with your din ? 

The Deapee. 

[Throwing up both hands.] Heaven rue the 
day it runs foul of him ! [To Patelist.] Six 
yards of cloth ! Come, now ! honestly, is it fair 
for me to lose 'em ? 

Patelin. 

Oh ! Doctor John. This is awful ! . . . 
I don't know how I keep on living. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 4 1 

The Draper. 

{Shaking hisfisf] I want nine francs in full, 
I say, or by Saint Peter . . . 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Dear me ! how you plague the man ! How 
can you be so boisterous ? You see clearly that 
he takes you for a physician. Alas ! the poor 
Christian has had ill luck enough. Eleven 
weeks without a break he's been lying there, 
poor soul ! 

[ Clasps her hands and looks like the most 
dismal hypocrite / Patelin rolls over 
with a groan. 

The Draper. 
[Half to himself. ~] Od's blood! [Pause.] 
I can't imagine how this mishap could have be- 
fallen him ; for he came this very day and we 
struck a bargain, — at least it seemed to happen 
so, if I'm not mistaken. 

GlTILLEMETTE. 

My good sir, there's something wrong with 
your memory. Eeally, I think you'd better go 
and rest a little ; for lots of folks might gossip 
that you come in here on my account. Go 
away ! The physicians will be here presently, 
and I wouldn't have any one suspect some im- 
propriety. 



42 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

The Draper. 
[To himself.] Oh, curse it all ! So this is 
the fix I'm in. [Mopping his brow. To Gutl- 
lemette.] I'll be bound ! I still thought 
. . . You have no goose on the fire ? 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Hark what he asks ! Why, sir, that's no food 
for sick folks. Eat your own geese, and don't 
come here to play your silly tricks. I must 
say, you make yourself very much at home. 

The Draper. 
Please don't take it amiss, for I verily be- 
lieved . . . 

GUILLEMETTE. 

What? Still? 

The Draper. 

[Muttering^] By the sacrament . . . [To 
Guillemette.] Good day! [To himself] 
The deuce ! Well, now I'll find out. [ Walks 
away slowly, muttering as he goes.] I know 
full well that I ought to have six yards, all in 
one piece ; but that woman has clean upset my 
wits. He took them ; no doubt of it ! [After 
reflection.] No, he did not. The devil ! what 
did he do ? I saw him in Death's clutch — or 
at least he's shamming death. [Ponders again.] 
Aye, by heaven, he did ! ]STo doubt of it ; he 
took them and stowed them beneath his elbow ! 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 43 

[After more reflection.'] No, he did not ! It 
may be I am dreaming ; yet, whether I be asleep 
or awake, it is not like me to give my goods to 
any man, however friendly he may be. I 
wouldn't have trusted any one. [Angrily.'] 
Damme ! he took them ! and by the death . . . 
[Beflecting.] No, I have it! He did not! 
. . . Yet what am I coming to ? [Emphat- 
ically.'] He has them ! [After a slight pause 
he waves his arms desperately and bursts out.] 
May the devil take both his body and his soul 
if I know who's got the best or the worst of it, 
they or myself ! I'm all at sea. [Exit. 

Patelin. 
[Peeps out between the curtains ; low to Guil- 
lemette.] Is he gone ? 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[At the door.] Hush ! I'm listening. He's 
humming some little tune or other under his 
breath. By the way he mutters, one might 
suppose he was losing his mind. 

Pateliist. 
Haven't I lain here long enough ? [After a 
pause.] He dropped in so punctually ! 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[Still listening.] Maybe he will return. 
[Patelin starts to rise.] No ! Heaven forbid ! 



44 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

Lie still a while. It would be all up with us if 
he found you out of bed. 

Patelin. 

He met his match, the distrustful skinflint ! 
Served him right ! 

GlJILLEMETTE. 

[Leavmg her post.] Of all the rank huck- 
sters that ever were baited he is the gem ! Oh, 
this is what he gets for ungodly stinginess. 

[She titters loudly. 

Patelijs". 

For heaven's sake, stop laughing! If he 
came back, he might play the mischief, and, let 
me tell you, we haven't seen the last of him. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

I declare ! Let anybody who can keep from 
laughing ; I can't help it ! [Laughs uproar- 
iously.] When I think of the face he made as 
he looked at you . . . [Laughs.] He 
dunned so fiercely ! [Laughs again. 

Patelin. 
Quit your cackling ! If some one should over- 
hear you we might as well skip out : he's such 
a crusty rogue. 

[Knocking is heard at the door L. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 45 

The Draper. 

[Pounding angrily on the door.'] Ho, there ! 
mis'ess : where are you hiding ? 

GTJILLEMETTE. 

My word ! he's heard me ! [Looking through 
the keyhole.] He seems to be going mad. 

Patelin. 

[In bed ; draws the curtains together.] I'll 
make believe I'm delirious. Let him in. 

Gtjillemette. 

[Opening the door and trying to look 
serious^] How you yell ! 

The Draper. 

[Entering noisily.] By the holy light that 
shines, that freshwater barrister shall pay me. 
Pooh ! That income of his ! A likely yarn ! 
He has my cloth, the swindler ! Ha ! a 
drunken pettifogger ! [Sneering.] A quack! 
[Ironically.] The rest of us are brainless 
clowns, forsooth ! No one was ever fitter to 
be hanged ! [Turning and catching sight of 
Gtjillemette trying to suppress her amuse- 
ment^] Ah ha ! you're laughing, eh ? 

Gtjillemette. 

[Trying to check her laughter?] My stars ! 
What do you think I've got to laugh about ? 



46 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

There isn't an unhappier creature under the 
sun. He's passing away. Never did you hear 
such a storming, such a frenzy. His mind is 
still astray; he raves, he sings, and then he 
babbles and mutters in so many languages ! 
He won't live half an hour. Upon my soul, I 
laugh and weep in the same breath. 

The Draper. 

I know nothing about your laughter or your 
weeping. To cut it short, I must be paid ! 

GUILLEMETTE. 

For what ? Are you daft ? Are you begin- 
ning to rant again ? 

The Draper. 

[Haughtily^] I am not wont to be thus 
spoken to when I am selling my cloth. Would 
you have me believe the moon is made of green 
cheese ? 

Patelist. 

[Standing on the bed, as if framed between 
the curtains.'] Now then ! the Queen of the 
Gitterns ! [Gesture as if playing one.] Quick ! 
Fetch her here ! I know well she has given 
birth to four and twenty gitternkins by the 
abbot of Ivernaux : I must stand godfather for 
him. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 47 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Alas ! Think about God the Father, my 
dear, not about gitterns or gitternkins. 

The Draper. 
[Aside.] Ha ! "What a pair of humbugs ! 
[Exploding.] Quick now ! I want pay for the 
cloth that you got of me. 

Guillemette. 

La! If you made one mistake, aren't you 
satisfied ? 

The Draper. 
[Appealing.'] What can I do, dear friend ? 
So help me God ! I'm not aware of a mis- 
take. . . . [Indignantly^] Come now ! 
Pay, or be hanged ! [ Whining.] How do I 
wrong you if I come here to ask for what is 
mine ? For by Saint Peter . . . 

Guillemette. 
Alas ! How you rack the man ! [Inspired.] 
I see by your looks that your mind is not 
sound. [Scanning him closely.] As sure as 
I'm a sinner, if I had help I'd tie you fast ; 
you've gone stark mad. 

The Draper. 
[Desperately.] Oh, dear, oh, dear! I am 
beside myself. 



48 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

GrUILLEMETTE. 

How can you say such things ! Cross your- 
self ! Benedicite ! [Insisting^] Make the sign 
of the cross ! 

The Draper. 

Hang me if ever I trust anybody with . . . 
[He begins to speak brokenly, hearing noises from 
the bed, where Patelhst is about to have afresh 
frenzy] . . . cloth . . . this . . . 
year . . . Godamercy ! What an invalid ! 

Patelhst. 

[Leaping down from his bed and striding 
about, performing, meanwhile, various ivild 
antics which the Draper observes with amaze- 
ment.'] Mere de diou, la coronade, — par fye, y 
m'en voul anar. — Or renague biou, outre mar. 
Ventre de diou ! zendict gigone, — gastuy 
9a rible et res ne done. — Ne carillaine, fuy ta 
none, — que de l'argent il ne me sone ! If it's 
ducats, mum is the word. [To the Draper.] 
Have you understood, fair coz ? 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[To the Draper.] He once had an uncle 
near Limoges, a brother of his aunt-in-law. 
That, I take it, is why he jabbers in the 
gibberish of Limousin. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 49 

The Draper. 

Out on you ! He stole away with my cloth 
under his arm-pit. 

Patelin. 

{Taking Guillemette by the hand and 
starting to lead her away in princely fashion,'] 
Yenez ens, douce damiselle. {Pointing to 
the Draper.] Toaclspawn ! what's it after ? 
[Haughtily commanding the Draper to draw 
bach] Avaunt, scullion, avaunt ! [ While the 
Draper stares Patelijst strides across the 
roo?n, snatches up an old gown of Guil- 
LEMETTe's, and in very short order gets him- 
self up as a priest / he then addresses his be- 
wildered' visitor in exclamative or questioning 
tones. .] Hither ! Hasten ! Devil, come look 
at this old monkery. Heh ! fault il que ly 
prestre rie, quant il delist canter se messe ? 

Guillemette. 
Alas ! alas ! it will soon be time to give him 
the extreme unction. 

The Draper. 
But how does he happen to speak the Picard 
tongue ? Whence comes this foolishness ? 

Guillemette. 
His mother was raised in Picardy; so he 
speaks Picard now. 



50 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

Patelijst. 
[ Going toward the Draper.] Whence comest 
thou, merry reveler ? Wacarme ! lief ve gode- 
man. Henriey, Henriey, conselapen. {Takes 
the Draper's hands and goes dancing about 
the room, singing.'] Grile, grile, scohehonden 
— zilop, zilop, en mon que bonden, — Disticlien 
unen desen versen, — mat groet festal ou truit 
den hersen. [As he gives the astounded Draper 
a final twirl, Patelin trips himself , falls, and 
lies on his bach with only enough strength left 
to gasp / but in this posture he soon gets breath 
to continue his linguistic antics.'] Vuste vuille 
pour le frimas ! [Kneels as if at a confessional.] 
Bring brother Thomas to confess me. 

The Draper. 
"What's this ? He'll keep on all day talking 
foreign languages. If he would only give me 
my money or a security, I would go. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Bless my soul ! . . . Oh, dear me ! How 
queer you are ! What would you expect ? 
How can you be so stubborn ? 

Patelijst. 

[To the Draper.] Or cha, Eenouart au 

Tine ! — Be dea, que ma couille est pelouse ! 

[The Draper, determined to get his money by 

hook or by crook, takes hold of Patelin's gown 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 5 1 

and gives it a pull. Patelin wiggles his 
toes.'] Zounds ! what's after me now ? Esse 
une vaque ? — une niousque ? ou ung escarbot ? 
[ The Draper retreats. Patelin crouches be- 
hind the bench, with only his head visible.'] Be 
dea ! Wow ! J'e le mau saint Garbot !— Suis je 
des foyreux de Baieux ? 

The Draper. 
How can he stand the strain of so much 
talking ? [ Witnessing fresh antics.] Ho ! he's 
losing his wits ! But how comes he to speak 
Norman ? 

GUILLEMETTE. 

His schoolmaster was a Norman; so in his 
last hour the memory of it comes back to him. 
[Further capers by Patelix.] He's giving up 
the ghost ! 

The Draper. 

[In dismay.] Heavens ! This is the worst 
raving that ever I ran across. [To Guille- 
mette.] I never should have thought he was 
not this day at market ! 

GUILLEMETTE. 

[Astonished.] You thought so ? 

The Draper. 
Yes, hanged if I didn't ; but I see that isn't 
what happened, at all. 



52 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

Patelin. 

[Listening, as if he heard some noise in the 
street.] Sont il ung asne que j'os braire ? Is it 
a donkey I hear braying ? [Sputtering, as if 
another frenzy were coming on.~\ Ha oul dan- 
daoul en ravezeie — Corfha en euf . 

[Patelin pulls his gown over his head 
so as to resemble an old hag. Mean- 
while Guillemette and the Draper, 
clinging to each other, await the next 
occurrence with a horror m one case 
shammed, in the other real. Hearing 
a weird sound from behind the bench, 
Guillemette cries out, with clasped 
hands. 

Guillemette. 
God help you ! 

Patelin. 

[Picks up a broom, and with the handle 
makes cabalistic figures on the floor, draws a 
circle round the Draper ; then sits astride his 
broom and goes prancing off like a witch, con- 
tinuing his muiterings.~] Huis oz bezou drone 
nos badou — Digaut an tan en hoi madou — Maz 
rehet crux dan holcon — So ol oz merveil il grant 
nacon— Aluzen archet epysy — Har cals amour 
ha coureisy. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 53 

The Draper. 

Alas ! Blest Heaven ! Hearken to it ! He's 
sinking. How he gurgles ! [To Guillemette.] 
But what is he sputtering about ? How he 
mutters ! Od's bodykin ! he mumbles so I can- 
not catch a word of it. This is not Christian, 
nor any other tongue, apparently. 

Guillemette. 
It's Breton. His grandmother on his father's 
side came from Brittany. [Patelin shows 
signs of exhaustion.'] He's dying ! I must send 
for a priest. 

Patelist. 

[Still astride the broom; to the Draper.] 
He par Gigon, tu te mens. — Yualx te deu, 
couille de Lorraine ! [Starts to explain the cab- 
alistic figures to the Draper, who retreats in 
alarm. Patelik pursues him, whacking the 
floor and furniture with his broom. Finally, 
as the Draper, breathless, takes refuge behi?id 
a chair, Patelin addresses him in Latin.'] Et 
bona dies sit vobis, — magister amantissime, — 
pater reverendissime, — quomodo brulis ? que 
nova? — Parisius non sunt ova! [To Guille- 
mette.] Quid petit ille mercator ? — Dicat 
sibi quod trufator, — ille qui in lecto jacet, — 
vult ei dare, si placet, — de oca ad comedendum. 
[Falls on the floor. The Draper, who 



54 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

has regained some of his courage, helps 

GUILLEMETTE to put PATELIK to 

bed, bolstering him up with pilloios. 
Patelin continues to mutter. 

GUILLEMETTE. 

Upon my word, he will die a-talking ! How 
he froths ! [ To the Draper.] Don't you see 
how he's steaming? {Casting her eyes aloft.] 
Now his human part is going to its heavenly 
home. {Hiding her face in her hands.] Now 
I shall be left alone, poor and forlorn. 

The Draper. 
[Aside.] Perhaps I'd better go away before 
he breathes his last. [To Guillemette.] I 
fear he might be loth, while he is dying, to tell 
you any secrets in my presence, though he would 
in privacy. [Aside.] By all the saints ! I'm 
flummuxed worse than ever. [After a short 
pause.] The Devil, in his stead, took my cloth 
to tempt me ! Benedicite ! [Crosses himself] 
May he leave me in peace ! And since the case 
so stands, I give the cloth in God's name to 
whosoever took it. Pardon ; for I take my 
oath I thought he had got my cloth. Good- 
bye, ma'am ; may God forgive me ! 

Guillemette. 
[Showing him out.] Heaven bless you — and 
his poor mournful wife ! [Exit Draper. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 55 

Patelik. 

[Jumping out of bed and waving his heinel 
after the departing Draper.] Go along with 
you ! [To Guillemette.] How do you like 
me for a teacher ? [Peeping into the street^ 
Crackbrains is making for home. [Taps his 
head significantly.'] Heavens ! he has rooms to 
let ! . . . He'll see spooks this night. 

Guillemette. 
[Gaily. .] How he was bamboozled! And 
didn't I do my part well ? 

Patelin. 
" Well ? " You're an angel ! Now we've got 
cloth enough to have some clothes ! 

[With this, Pateliin" pulls the stolen 
cloth from the bed, where it has lain 
hidden, wraps one end round his body 
and flings the whole strip) so that it lies 
unfolded when it reaches Guille- 
m^tt^s feet. She grasps her end and 
whirls so that she and Patelin are 
close together when the curtain falls. 

TABLEAU curtail 

[ The curtain rises at the Draper's shop. 

The Draper. 
That's the way ! Everybody stuffs me with 
lies. Everybody carries off my goods, and takes 



56 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

what he can get. Of all unlucky men I am the 
king. The very shepherds cheat me ; but mine, 
whom I have always treated kindly, shall be 
sorry for flouting me! By heaven, he shall 
smart for it ! 

The Shepherd. 

[Appearing unexpectedly from the left of the 
market-place. On being seen by his master, he 
removes his cap and boios y then begins to speak 
with the thick dull drawl of a yokel. ~\ God give 
you a good day, sweet master, and a good 
evening ! 

The Draper. 

Oho ! So it's thou, foul churl. A good fel- 
low thou art ; aye, good for the gallows ! 

The Shepherd. 
[Resting his crook on the ground and stop- 
ping about five feet from the Draper.] I ax 
your pardon, master, but some one or other in 
striped hosen, which were right disorderly, and 
he had a rod in his hand, yet no lash on it, said 
to me, says he . . . yet I don't remember 
at all well what it may be, to tell the truth. 
He spoke to me of you, master, and of some 
summons or other. As for me, Lord ! much I 
know what it's all about. He muddled me 
a-talking about ewes and court in the afternoon. 
And he raised a great hullaballoo for you, 
master ... 




2Le@iapptcr 
cjuop Bca tfyafcut) me paift Se fo6c@ 
efjafcui) ma? poite mot? auoic 
cf pient ce quit®) peufl auois 
or fufe tefe co^Bes mefrijane 
IJiefment fes Setaicts 0cg champs 
mc ca ftufmt ores fc miet) 
ttqui iai? toiiftouts fait §u BCcij 
if nema pas pout: Bietj ga06e 

77/£ Shepard comes to explain 



58 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

The Draper. 
[Shaking his fist in the face of £A£ Shepherd, 
who cowers against the wall.] If I don't have 
thee hauled forthwith before the judge, may I 
be drowned and blasted! Never shalt thou 
kill one beast, by my oath, but thou remember 
it ! Anyhow, thou shalt pay me for the six 
yards ... I mean for slaughtering my 
sheep, and the havoc thou hast wrought me 
these ten years past. 

The Shepherd. 
Don't believe the slanders, my good master ; 
for, upon my soul . . . 

The Draper. 
And by heaven ! before Saturday thou shalt 
give me back my six yards of wool ... I 
mean what was taken from my sheep. 

The Shepherd. 
What wool ? Ah, master ! I believe you are 
angry over some other thing. By Saint Lupus ! 
master, I fear to speak when I look at you. 

The Draper. 
Leave me in peace ! Out of my sight ! — if 
thou art wise. And thou hadst better be on hand. 

The Shepherd. 
Master, let us agree. For God's sake, don't 
go to law about it. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 59 

The Deapee. 

[Waving him off.] Begone! Thy business 
is in a pretty pass ! [ Yelling and shaking his 
fist in the Shepheed's face.] Begone ! I say. 
I'll make no agreement, nor settle anything, 
save as the judge shall do. [He drives the 
Shepheed out.~] Yah ! Unless I'm wary, 
everyone will be swindling me from now on ! 

The Shepheed. 

[As the Deapee enters his shop."] God be 
wi' you, sir, and give you joy ! [Crossing the 
market-place; to hi?nself.] So I must defend 
myself. [Exit, l. u. 

TABLEAU CUETAm 

[ The curtain rises at Patelin's house. 
Knocking is heard at the door L. 

Patelhst. 
Hang me, if he isn't coming back ! 

GUILLEMETTE. 

No, he is not ; mercy on me ! that would be 
the very worst. [Exit. 

The Shepheed. 
[As Patelik opens the door.] God be with 
you ! God bless you ! 



60 master pierre patelin 

Patelin. 

God keep thee ! What wilt thou, my good 
fellow? ' '* 

The Shepherd. 

They will fine me for default unless I ap- 
pear for trial. And, if you like, you will 
come, sweet master, and defend me ; for I 
know nothing. And I will pay you well, even 
though I be ill clad. 

Pateliist. 
Come hither, now. Speak up ! Which art 
thou ? — plaintiff ? or defendant ? 

The Shepheed. 
I have business with a dealer — do you under- 
stand, sweet master ? — whose ewes I have for 
a great while led to pasture and watched for 
him. Now, sir, upon my word, I saw he paid 
me scantily. . . . Shall I tell everything ? 

Patelin. 
To be sure ! A client should hide nothing 
from his counsel. 

The Shepheed. 
It is true, sir, beyond denial, that I whacked 
'em on the skull for him, so that time and again 
thev went into a swoon and fell dead : no mat- 
ter how strong and sound they were. And 
then, lest he should lay it to me, I gave him to 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 6 1 

understand that they died of the scab. " Ho ! " 
quoth he, " take the scabby one away from the 
others ; off with her ! " " Eight willingly ! " 
quoth I ; [Leering] but that w r as done other- 
wise ; for, by Saint John ! I ate 'em, knowing 
well what they wanted. Well, sir, this went 
on so long, and I slaughtered so many, that 
he found it out. And w^hen he saw he w T as be- 
ing deceived, — God help me ! — he set somebody 
to spy ; for you hear them bleat very loud, 
you understand, when it's going on. So I've 
been caught red-handed ; I can't deny it. Now 
I beseech you — for my part I have money 
enough — that we two steal a march on him. I 
know well he has the law on his side, but you 
will find some loophole, if you try, so as to 
give him the worst of it. 

Patelin, 
\_Coaxingly.~] What will you give me if I 
upset the plaintiff's case and you are acquitted ? 

The Shepherd. 
I w T ill pay you not in copper, but in fine gold 
crowns. 

Patelhst. 
Then your case shall be a good one. And were 
it twice as bad, so much the better ! and the sooner 
I shall do for him ! [Slight pause.] Come 
hither ! [Slight pause.] Art thou crafty enough 
to understand a trick ? What is thy name ? 



62 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

The Shepherd. 
Tibalt Lambkin. 

Patelest. 

[Jocularly.] Lambkin, hast thou filched 
many a sucking lamb from thy master ? 

The Shepherd. 
My word ! it's quite likely I have eaten above 
thirty in three years. 

Patelin. 
Ten yearly to pay for dice and candles. 
~ Aside."] I believe I shall let him have it fair ! 
Aloud.'] Dost think he can find any one forth- 
with to prove his facts ? That's what the case 
hinges on. 

The Shepherd. 
Prove, sir ? Blessed Mary ! By all the 
saints in Paradise ! instead of one he'll have a 
dozen witnesses against me ! 

Pateliist. 
That's a bad feature in thy case. [Slight 
pause.] Here is what I had in mind. I'll 
feign to know naught of thee, that I never laid 
eyes on thee before. 

The Shepherd. 
[In dismay.] Lord, no ! not that ! 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 63 

Patelin. 
No, then I won't. But here is what you must 
do. If you talk, they will trap you every time, 
and in such cases confessions are most preju- 
dicial, and so harmful that it's the very devil. 
Here is the trick ! As soon as they call on you 
for trial, answer nothing but ba-a-a {Mimicking 
a sheets bleat], whatever they say to you. And 
if they happen to curse you, saying, " Ha, filthy 
fool ! a plague on you, villain ! Are you flouting 
the court?" go ba-a. "Oh!" I'll say, "he's 
half-witted ; he thinks he's talking to his sheep ! " 
But even if they split their heads with roaring, 
not another word ! Beware ! 

The Shepherd. 
I take it to heart, and truly I will be wary, 
and I will do it properly, I promise and affirm. 

Patelin. 
Now heed ! No flinching ! And whatever I 
say or do, give me no other answer. 

The Shepherd. 
I ? By my sacrament ! call me a fool out- 
right if I utter to-day another word, to you or 
to any one, whatsoever they say to me, but only 
ba-a, as you have taught me. 

Pateliist. 
By Saint John ! There is the prank to out- 



64 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

wit your adversary ! [In a tone between whee- 
dling and threat^] But when it's done, pay me 
a right good fee. 

The Shepherd. 
Master, if I do not pay as agreed, never trust 
me. But I pray, look carefully to my business. 

Patelin. 
By'r Lady of Boulogne, the Judge must be 
holding court ; for he's always on hand by six 
o'clock, or thereabouts. Now come along with 
me, but we will not take the same road. 

The Shepherd. 
Quite so ! [Shrewdly.'] They mustn't see 
that you're my lawyer. 

Patelin. 
[Threateningly.'] By'r Lady ! Mind your 
skin, if you don't pay handsomely ! 

The Shepherd. 
Why ! as agreed, sir ; never fear. [Exit, L. 

Patelist. 
[Alone.] Oh, well, half a loaf is better than 
no loaf at all. I shall hook a minnow, any- 
how ; and if he is lucky, he will give me a 
crown or so for my pains. 

~ [Follows the Shepherd out. 

CURTAIN 



THE THIED ACT 

SCENE. — In the market-place. Enter Judge, 
followed by a Clerk, a score of Archers, 
Bailiffs, and Loiterers, who range 
themselves to the right and left of the mar- 
ket-cross, so as to leave an open space before 
the Judge's seat. The Judge sits down 
and surveys the crowd, in which are Pat- 
elln" and the Shepherd. 

Patelin. 

{Removing his hat; to the Judge.] God 
bless you, sir, and grant you your heart's 
desire ! 

The Judge. 

Welcome, sir ! But cover yourself. [Points.] 
There ! Take a seat. 

Patelin. 

[Hiding in the crowd, to avoid being seen by 
the Draper, whose breathless approach brings 
to him the sudden realization that the Shep- 
herd's adversary is the very person whom he 
has himself 'beguiled.'] Oh, I'm all right, sir, if 
you please ; there's more room here. 

65 



66 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

The Judge. 
{Brusquely .] If there's business, have done 
with it, in order that the court may adjourn. 

The Draper. 
[Arriving much flurried, just as the Judge 
has spoken.] My lawyer is coming, your wor- 
ship. He is finishing a little work that he was 
at, and it would be kind of you to wait for him. 

The Judge. 
[Testily.'] Come, come ! I have business 
elsewhere. If the offending party is here, set 
forth your case at once. Are you not the 
plaintiff ? 

The Draper. 
I am. 

The Judge. 
[ Casting his eyes about] "Where is the de- 
fendant ? Is he present in person ? 

The Draper. 

[Pointing at the Shepherd.] Yes, there 
he is, keeping mum ; but God knows he has 
plenty to think about. 

The Judge. 
[To the Draper.] Since you are both here, 
make known vour suit. 



0<weferice8ieijflefafcn&ze 

jdeutge 
pc$ea it aiffeutea cnfcnSte 

SeCtHceeSoudfanepfaeSatenfe 
ct neffes Sous pae SemanScuc 
SeSzappta 




The court scene 



68 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

The Draper. 
This, then, is what I am bringing an action 
against him for. Your Worship, the truth is 
that for the love of God, and out of charity, I 
reared him in his childhood ; and when I saw 
that he was strong enough to work in the 
fields, to cut it short, I made him my shepherd 
and set him to watching my flock ; but as true 
as you are sitting there, your Worship, he 
has wrought such havoc among my ewes and 
wethers that, no mistaking, he . . . 

The Judge. 
[Officious.] Now listen ! Wasn't he in your 
hire? 

Patelin. 

[Breaking in, ostensibly to shoic that the 
Judge has made a good point.] Aye, that's 
it ! For had he kept him for pure sport, with- 
out hire . . . 

The Draper. 

[Recognizing Patelin, who hides his face 
behind his hand.] Devil get me ! If it's not 
you, and no mistake ! 

The Judge. 
[To Patelhst.] How's this ? Why do you 
hold your hand up? Have you a toothache, 
Master Pierre ? 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 69 

Patelijst. 

[ Wincing!] Yes, my teeth are raising such 
a row that I never felt worse pains. I daren't 
lift my head. [ Waving one hand.'] For God's 
sake, make him proceed ! 

The Judge. 

[To the Draper.] Go on. Finish your 
charge. Come ! Conclude promptly. 

The Draper. 

[Aside, and staring at Patelin.] By the 
holy rood, 'tis he and no other ! [To Pate- 
liist.] It was you I sold six yards of cloth to, 
Master Pierre ! 

The Judge. 

[To Patelin.] What is he saying about 
cloth ? 

PATELIN. 

[To the Judge.] He's rambling. He means 
to come to the point, but he can't find his way 
to it, for he lacks the training. 

The Draper. 

[Half choTced with indignation.'] Hang me, 
if anybody else took my cloth. 



70 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

Patelin. 
[To the Judge.] How the wretched man 
lugs in his inventions to make out a case ! The 
pig-headed fellow means, of course, that his 
shepherd had sold the wool that went into the 
cloth that made my garment, by saying that 
he is robbing him, and that he stole the wool 
of his sheep. 

The Draper. 
[To Patelin.] Hang me, if you haven't it ! 

The Judge. 
[To the Draper.] In the devil's name, be 
still ! You are twaddling. Can you not return 
to the subject without delaying the court by 
such drivel ? 

Patelin. 
[ With one hand still on his jaw. ~] My teeth 
ache so ; yet I must laugh ! [Looking toward 
the Draper.] He's already in such haste that 
he doesn't know where he left off. We must 
set him right again. 

The Judge. 
[To the Draper.] Come! Let's stick to 
those sheep ! What happened ? 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN J I 

The Draper. 
[Is about to return to his sheep, when Patelin, 
by stepping in front of him, diverts his attention ; 
whereupon he shakes his fist at Patelust and at 
the same time appeals to the Judge.] He took 
six yards, worth nine francs ! 

The Judge. 
[Bawling.'] Are we greenhorns ? or tom- 
fools ? Where do you think you are ? 

Patelin. 
[To the Judge.] Od's blood ! He takes us 
for ganders, I suppose ! Oh, he looks so very 
good ! but let me advise that his opponent be 
examined a bit. 

The Judge. 
[Regaining his composure?^ Very true ! He 
is familiar with the man ; he must know him. 
[To the Shepherd.] Step forward. Speak. 

The Shepherd. 
[Shambling forward and looking very dull.] 
Ba-a ! 

The Judge. 

Hoity-toity ! Here's a mess ! What is this 
ba-a? Am I a goat ? Speak to me ! 



72 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

The Shepherd. 
Ba-a ! 

The Judge. 
A plague on you! Ha! Are you flouting 
us? 

Patelin. 
[To the Judge.] Believe me, he's crazy, or 
stupid, or he fancies he's among his sheep. 

The Draper. 
[Wildly, to Patelik.] Damme if you are 
not the very man that took it, — my cloth, I 
mean. [To the Judge.] Oh, you can't imag- 
ine, sir, by what deceit . . . 

The Judge. 
[Threatening.] Hold your tongue ! Are you 
an idiot ? Leave that matter alone, and let's 
come to the point ! 

The Draper. 
True, your Worship; but the circumstance 
concerns me; yet on my faith I'll not utter 
another word about it. [Half aside .] Another 
time it may be different. I shall have to swal- 
low it whole. [To the Judge.] Well, as I was 
saying, I gave six yards [The Judge starts up] 
. . . I mean, my sheep . . . pray, sir, 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 73 

forgive me . . . this fine lawyer . . . 
my shepherd, when he ought to have been in 
the fields . . . [Skahmg his fist o^Patelin 

and appealing frantically to the Judge.] He 
told me I should have six crowns in gold, as 
soon as I came . . . [As the Judge threat- 
ens] ... I mean, three years ago my shep- 
herd gave me his word that he would watch 
over my flock loyally and do me no damage to 
it, nor any villainy, and then . . . [Seeing 
Patelin] now he denies me outright both 
cloth and money. [To Patelin".] Oh, Master 
Pierre, truly . . . [Catches a warning frown 
from the Judge.] That scoundrel robbed me 
of the wool of my sheep ; and healthy though 
they were, he killed them, and made them die 
by pounding out their brains . . . [Again 
Patelin distracts his attention.'] When he had 
tucked my cloth under his armpit he hurried 
off, saying I should go and get six gold crowns 
at his house. 

The Judge. 
There is neither rime nor reason in all your 
railing. What does it mean ? Now you inter- 
lard one thing, now another. In short, 'fore 
God, I can make neither head nor tail of it. 
[To Patelin.] He muddles something about 
cloth and prattles next of sheep, helter skelter. 
What can he be driving at ? 



74 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

Patelun". 
Now, I undertake that he is keeping back the 
poor shepherd's wage. 

The DeapeEc 
[ To Patelin.] By heaven, you might hold 
your tongue! My cloth ... as true as 
gospel ... I know where my shoe pinches 
better than you or any one. I swear you 
have it ! 

The Judge. 
[To the Draper.] What has he ? 

The Draper. 
Nothing, sir. [Again bursts out] Upon my 
oath, he is the greatest swindler . . . [The 
Judge threatens.'] Oh, I'll be silent about it, if 
I can, and not speak of it again, whatever 
happens. 

The Judge. 
No ! But remember ! Now finish speedily. 

Patelin. 
[To the Judge.] This shepherd can't answer 
the charge without counsel ; yet he is afraid, or 
doesn't know how to ask for it. If you were 
willing to order me to take his case, I would. 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 7$ 

The Judge. 

[Ironically.] His case? You'd get cold 
comfort out of that, I should imagine. It's 
hardly worth while. 

Patelin. 
But, honestly, I don't care to make anything 
out of it ; let it be done for charity ! [Turning 
toward the Shepherd.] Now I'm going to 
find out from the poor lad what he will tell me, 
and whether, perchance, he may afford me mat- 
ter for his defence. He'd have a hard time 
getting out of it if nobody came to his rescue. 
[To the Shepherd.] Come hither, my friend. 
[ With an utterly vacant expression the Shep- 
herd slouches forward a step or two, vjith his 
crook in one hand, and his cap in the other.] 
If any one could find . . . dost thou un- 
derstand ? 



The Shepherd. 



Ba-a ! 



Patelijst. 

[Feigning astonishment^ Ba-a ? The devil ! 
What ba-a ? Zounds ! Art thou crazy ? Tell 
me thy business. 

The Shepherd. 
Ba~a-a ! 



76 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

Patelin. 
How ba-a ? Dost thou hear thy ewes a-bleat- 
ing ? Mind, it is to thine interest. 

The Shepheed. 
Ba-a ! 

Patelin. 
[Entreating^] Now speak ! Say yes, and 
no. [ Whispering,] Well done ! Keep it up ! 

The Shepherd. 
[Softly.] Ba-a! 

Patelijst. 
Louder, or it may cost thee dear. 

The Shepherd. 
[ Very loud.] Ba-a-a ! 

Patelin. 
[As, with a despairing gesture, he appeals to 
the Judge.] The maddest man is he who drives 
such a born fool into court ! Oh, sir ! send him 
back to his ewes : he's a fool by nature. 

The Draper. 
[To Pateldst.] A fool, you say ? Bah ! he 
has more sense than you ! 



MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN yj 

Pateli^". 
[To the Judge.] Send him away to watch 
over his flocks, — never to return. A plague on 
whoever cites such a lackbrains into court ! 

The Draper. 
[To the Judge.] And he is to be sent away 
before I can be heard ? 

Patelix. 
[To the Draper.] So help me ! Yes ; since 
he's out of his mind. Why not ? 

The Draper. 
[To the Judge.] Oh, now% sir ; at least allow 
me first to have my say. What I have to tell 
you is no trumpery, nor scoffing. 

The Judge. 
Vexation is all that comes of having dolts on 
trial, either male or female. Listen ! To cut 
the matter short, the court will adjourn. 

The Draper. 
[Wistfully. ~\ Shall they go away without 
ever having to appear again ? 

The Judge. 
[Gathering up his robe.'] Well, now what . . . 



78 MASTER PIERRE PATE LIN 

Patelin. 
[To the Judge.] Appear again ! You never 
saw a madder man, neither in his acts nor in 
his answers. [Pointing to the Draper.] And 
he is not a whit better. Both are fools. I'll 
be blessed ! between them they haven't a penny- 
weight of brains ! 

The Draper. 
[Shaking his fist at Patelin.] You carried 
it off by lying, — that cloth, I mean, — and with- 
out paying for it, Master Pierre. Tore God, 
that was the work of no upright man. 

Patelin. 
[To the crowd.] Suffering Saints ! If he 
isn't mad already, he is going mad. 

The Draper. 
[To Patelin.] I know you by your speech, 
and by your dress. I am not mad : I am sound 
enough to know who does right by me. [To 
the Judge.] I will tell you the whole matter, 
sir ; upon my word I will ! 

Patelhst. 
[To the Judge.] Oh, sir ! Bid him be quiet ! 
[To the Draper.] Aren't you ashamed to 
wrangle so with this poor shepherd over three 
or four measly sheep not worth two buttons ! 
[To the crowd.] He makes more ado . . 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 79 

The Draper. 

[Storming and shaking his fists.'] What 
sheep ? [ With an exjiression of weariness and 
indignation he gives a couple of turns to an im- 
aginary crank.] A hurdy-gurdy ! Always the 
same old tune ! [Shaking his finger in Pate- 
ia^s face.] It's to yourself I'm talking,— to 
you ! and by all that's holy you shall give it 
back to me ! 

The Judge. 
Look you ! I am lucky ! [To the crowd.] 
He will never stop bawling ! 

The Draper. 
[To the Judge.] I ask him . . . 

[General uproar among the bystanders. 

PaTELHST. 

[To the Judge.] Make them be quiet ! [To 
the Draper.] Oh, goodness ! Give that song 
a rest ! Suppose he has banged six or seven, 
or a dozen, and eaten them. Fie ! That is 
hard on you ! You've earned more than that 
while he's been keeping them. 

The Draper. 
[To the Judge.] Mark, sir ! Mark ! When 
I talk to him of cloth, he answers with his 
shepherd fooleries ! [To Pateli]s t .] Six yards 



80 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

of cloth that you put under your armpit and 
walked off with — where are they? Do you 
mean to give them back to me ? 

Patelin. 
[To the Judge.] Oh, sir ! Would you have 
him hanged for six or seven sheep ? At least, 
sir, take time to catch your breath. Don't be 
so harsh to a forlorn shepherd, who's as naked 
as a worm. 

The Draper. 
A pretty way to change the subject ! It was 
the devil made me sell cloth to such a customer ! 
[To the Judge.] Oh, now, your Worship, I 
ask him . . . • 

The Judge. 
[To the Draper.] I acquit him of your 
charge and forbid you to proceed. A great 
honour it is to have a lunatic in court ! [To the 
Shepherd.] Go back to your sheep ! 

The Shepherd. 
Ba-a ! 

The Judge. 
[To the Draper.] You show well what you 
are, sir, by's death ! 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 8 1 

The Draper. 
Oh, sir, upon my soul, I wish . . . 

Patelhnt. 
[To the bystanders.] Could he stop ? 

The Draper. 
[Turning upon Patelin.] And my busi- 
ness is with you ! You cheated me and carried 
off my cloth by stealth and with your smooth 
talk . . . 

Pateliist. 
[To the Judge.] I cross my heart ! Why, 
do you hear him, sir ? 

The Draper. 
[To Patelin.] God help me, you're the 
most arrant trickster . . . [To the 
Judge.] Your Worship, whatever they may 
say . . . 

The Judge. 
You are a pair of idiots, both of you ! It's 
naught but wrangling. [He rises.] Yah ! It 
is about time to be leaving. [To the Shep- 
herd.] Get thee gone, my friend, and never 
return, whatever bailiff serves a warrant on 
thee. The court acquits thee. Dost thou 
comprehend ? 



82 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

Patelijst. 
[To the Shepherd.] Say "I thank you, 



The Shepherd. 



Ba-a ! 



The Judge. 
[To the Shepherd.] I mean it. Never 
mind ! Begone ! [Half to himself \] It's just 
as well. 

The Draper. 
Is it fair that he should go away like this ? 

The Judge. 
[ With a snort of disgust.] Huh ! I have 
business elsewhere. [Both to Patelin and to 
the Draper.] You are by all odds too fond 
of jibes. You shall keep me no longer : I am 
going. [To Patelhst.] Will you come and 
sup with me, Master Pierre ? 

Patelin. 
[Puts his hand over his mouth and winces, 
as if his teeth were still aching.] I cannot. 

[Exit Judge, followed by the throng of 
Archers, Bailiffs, Loiterers, etc. 

The Draper. 
[To Patelin.] A downright robber ! that's 
what you are ! Say ! Am I going to be paid ? 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 83 

Pateli^t. 
For what? Is your mind wandering? 
Why, who do you think I am ? By my heel ! 
I was wondering who you took me for. 

The Deapee. 
Pah! 

Patelin. 
My dear sir, wait a bit. I'll tell you right 
now who you think you take me for. Maybe 
it's for Brainless ? [ With one hand Patelin 
removes his hat / with the other he points to his 
laid spot.'] Look ! [Dej?'recati?iglj/.] Nay, 
nay ! He isn't bald, as I am, on top of his 
pate. 

The Deapee. 
You mean to take me for a blockhead, eh ? 
'Tis you, as sure as I'm alive, — you yourself. 
Your voice proves it, and I know it's so. 

Patelijst. 
What! Me myself? Nay; truly it isn't. 
Guess once more. Mightn't it be Jean de 
Noyon ? He's shaped like me. 

The Deapee. 

Ugh ! He has no such guzzling, sodden face. 
Didn't I leave you sick in bed a short while 



since 



? 



84 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

Patelin. 
Ho ! There you have it ! Sick ? And 
with what malady? Own up to being a 
jackanapes,— as clearly enough you are ! 

The Draper. 
It's you ; by Saint Peter's bones ! You ! 
and nobody else ! I know it for a fact. 

Patelhst. 
Now, don't you believe anything of the sort ! 
For it's not me, at all. I never took a yard, 
nor even half a yard, from you. It's likely I 
would do such a thing ! 

The Draper. 

[Looking blank.'] Hm ! I'm going to have 
a look at your house, to see whether you are 
there. There's no use in our worrying our 
heads about it any longer here, if I find you 
there. 

Patelin. 
By'r Lady ! Now you have it ! That is the 
way to find out. {Exit Draper, r. u. 

Patelln. 
{Turning to Shepherd, l.] Say, Lambkin ! 

The Shepherd. 
Ba-a ! 



MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 85 

PateLIjN". 
[Beckoning?] Come hither. Come. Was thy 
business well done ? 

[The Shepherd does not move ; Pate- 
lin starts to approach him. 

The Shepherd. 
[Edging off.~] Ba-a ! 

Patelin. 
[Stopping, apprehensive lest the SHEPHERD 
'may take to flighty The plaintiff's gone now. 
Cease thy ba-a ; it's no longer needed. [Coax- 
ingly.~] Didn't I trounce him ? Didn't I counsel 
thee just right ? 

The Shepherd. 
Ba-a-a ! 

Patelin. 
{Drawing a step or two closer.'] Come, come ! 
Nobody will overhear you. Speak right out. 
You needn't fear. 

The Shepherd. 

{Looking for an outlet.'] Ba-a! 

Pateliist. 
[Firmly^] It is time for me to be going. 
Pay me ! 



86 master pierre pate lin 

The Shepherd. 
[Just audibly.*] Ba-a ! 

Pateliist. 

[Patting the Shepherd, and in a beguiling 
tone.] To say truth, you did your part prettily, 
and your behavior was first rate. What left 
him in the lurch was the way you kept from 
laughing. 

The Shepherd. 

[Bleating a little louder.] Ba-a-a ! 

Patelin. 
Why ba-a? It's not needed any longer. 
[Holds out his hand.] Come ! Pay me well 
and nicely. 

The Shepherd. 
Ba-a ! 

Patelin. 
Why ba-a ? Talk sensibly, and pay me ; then 
I will go my way. 

The Shepherd. 
[Still louder.] Ba-a-a ! 

Patelin. 
Let me tell you something. Can you guess 
what I am going to say ? Please pay me with- 
out further baaing. I've had enough of your 
ba-a. [Holding otit his hand.] Pay me, quick ! 




ta 6r.fongne edeffe 0ie^ f«i<# 



Patelin tries to collect his fee 



88 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

The Shepherd. 
[Baching off, with a prolonged bleat.] Ba-a-a-a! 

Pateliist. 
[Reproachfully 7\ Is this mockery ? Is this 
the most you intend to do ? [Growing fiercely 
eager.~\ Upon my oath, you shall pay me, unless 
you can fly ! [Cornering the Shepherd.] Do 
you understand ? Here ! My fee ! 

The Shepherd. 
Ba-a ! 

Patelin. 
This is a jest ! [ With a shade of pathos.] 
What ! Is this all I am to get ? 

The Shepherd. 
Ba-a ! 

Patelin. 
[Half in jest, but persuasively^ You are 
riming ; but this is prose. Hm ! What do you 
think I am ? Are you aware whom you are 
trying to take in? Babble to me no longer 
with your ba-a ! and pay me my fee. 

The Shepherd. 
[ Growin g restless. ] Ba-a-a ! 



master pierre pate lin 89 

Patelik. 

{Keeping him cornered.'] Is that the only 
pay I am to get ? With whom do you fancy 
you are playing? [Regretfully. ,] And I was 
to take such pride in you! Now let me be 
proud of you. 



The Shepheed. 



Ba-a! 



Patelin. 
Are you trying to feed me on goose ? 
[Fiercely.] By Heaven ! Have I lived to see 
myself jeered at by an oaf, a sheep in clothing, 
a filthy churl ! 

The Shepherd. 
Ba-a ! 

Patelik. 
[In gentle reproach.] Is this the only word 
I am to hear ? If you are merely fooling, say 
so, and spare me further argument. [A slight 
pause.] Come to my house for supper, Lamb- 
kin. 

The Shepherd. 
[Glancing at Patelin cunningly * then gives 
a loud bleat.] Ba-a-a ! 



90 MASTER PIERRE PATELIN 

Patelin. 
{Half to himself^ By Saint John, you are 
right ! The goslings lead the geese to pasture. 
[To himself.] I thought myself the master of 
all deceivers, but a mere shepherd leaves me 
behind ! [To the Shepherd, who is trying to 
make good his escape. .] You rascal ! if I could 
find a bailiff, I'd have you jailed ! 

The Shepheed. 
[Dodging about, while Patelin endeavours 
to /lead him off.~] Ba-a ! Ba-a-a ! 

Patelik. 
[Trying to get hold of the Shepherd.] Hm ! 
Ba-a! Hang me if I don't go after a good 
bailiff ! Bad luck to him if he doesn't put you 
into jail ! 

The Shepherd. 
[Fleeing L. u. e.] If he finds me, I'll forgive 
him ! 



CURTAIN 



Notes on the Text 



Notes on the Text 



i 

Page 4. "Aye, but he has studied a great 
while to be a scholar." Iu the original, Guille- 
mette says : Aussy a il leu le grimaire, a deriva- 
tive of grammatica (= " Latin grammar "). For 
several centuries the superstitious regarded le 
grimaire (English "grauiary ") as a work having 
some occult connexion with the Devil. See, for 
instance, the fabliau of Martin Hapart, vol. ii, 
p. 176, in the Eecueil general et complet des 
fabliaux. In the fabliau of Le roi W Angleterre 
et le jongleur WEly, ib. } p. 242, grymoire seems to 
mean "rigmarole." In Eabelais (iv, 45) we 
read : 4 ' Autour de luy estoient trois prebstres 
bien ras et tonsures, lisans le grimoyre et con- 
jurans les diables." To give in modern speech 
the exact connotation of le grimaire is quite im- 
possible. 

II 
Page 4. "Charlemaine in Spain." The first 
verses of the Song of Roland state that Charles 
the Great spent full seven years in Spain. 

93 



94 NOTES ON THE TEXT 

III 

Page 5. " Sliest rascal." Le Eoy reads 
chaudes testes; Levet changes chaudes to saiges. 
Le vet's alteration seems to indicate that chaudes 
testes was no longer clear in 1489, or thereabouts, 
and had, therefore, to be replaced by a more 
familiar expression. In my opinion, chaudes 
testes was slang, and meant something not very 
different from the translation that I have offered. 
At all events, to think of this wily barrister as 
" hot-headed" would be to endow him with a 
characteristic hardly in keeping with his per- 
sonality as it is portrayed in the remainder of 
the piece. A dare-devil he is, but self-controlled. 
It was trickery, not anger or violence, that caused 
Maitre Pierre to spend a Saturday in the pillory. 

IV 

Page 5. i i Silks and satins, f } —a rough equiva- 
lent of camelos . . et . . camocas. Cam- 
let, or chamlet,— to give the English forms of 
camelot and chamelot, — seems to have been a 
thick, wavy material, originally composed of 
camel's hair or goat's hair, but later, apparently, 
of silk and wool. u Of fees and robes hadde he 
many oon," says Chaucer of his Sergeant of the 
Law, and Eabelais scofflngly mentions "l'avocat, 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 95 

seigneur de Camelotiere," uncle of "le medecin 
d'eau douce, feu Amer " (Prol. Book v). 
Camoca was probably a silken stuff, also sump- 
tuous. 

Patelin' s envious thrust at the gorgeously 
robed lawyers strikes home ; for they, as well as 
the half-starved throng of pettifoggers to which 
Patelin belongs, were bent upon filling their 
wallets by hook or by crook. Commines (vi, 5) 
was indignant at their corrupt practices ; genera- 
tions later they aroused the scorn of Montaigne 
and excited the sarcasm of Moliere. 

V 

Page 6. " [Counting on his fingers] JJ — the only 
stage-direction to be found in any known fifteenth- 
century text of Patelin. 

VI 

Page 8. " Undergarment. " The original 
seems to contain a complicated pun on blanchet, 
which may be taken as the diminutive of blane 
(English u blank "), a small coin ; or may mean 
" blanket " for a bed, or a "petticoat " ; or even 
be the antonym of brunet-, the masculine of bru- 
nette. The actor who performed the part of 
Patelin was probably made up to look pale {fade) 



96 NOTES ON THE TEXT 

and boozy (potatif), as we shall see further on at 
the end of Act III. If Patelin is both pale and 
boozy, he is blanchet. This farce contains several 
puns of varying merit ; but the reader will 
pardon the translator both for his inability to do 
them justice, and for passing them henceforth in 
silence. 

VII 

Page 16. "God's-pennies." The system of 
giving a tradesman earnest-money (a " hansel") 
still survives ; but nowadays we call it a "de- 
posit," rather than "God's-penny," as it was 
commonly called by our medieval ancestors. 

In the Middle Ages it seems to have been 
customary to give the God's-penny to the 
purveyor, or to his agent (see Du Cange), as a 
token of religious obligation to pay the whole 
debt within a certain period, — not on Dooms- 
day, in the manner of Master Patelin. Often, if 
not always, the denier a Dieu (denarius Dei) was 
dropped into a box somewhere near the church, 
or either in or near the market-place. There it 
remained till removed by a servant of the Church. 
My stage-direction follows closely the tradition 
of the Comedie Fran^aise, and is probably not a 
contradiction of history. 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 97 

VIII 

Page 17. "The great frost. " Presumably, 
that of 1464. See Introduction. 

IX 

Page 18. " Saturday. J 7 Market-day regularly 
fell on Saturday. See Note xv. 

X 

Page 18. "Saint Maudeleyne's day." Mag- 
dalen College at Oxford, despite its spelling, 
preserves the Middle English pronunciation. I 
have chosen the popular form because of its 
euphonious nature and its more popular, less 
sacred air. Saint Maudeleyne's day is the 22 
July. 

XI 

Page 21. "That goose.' ' Patelin says, in 
the original, "Et si mengeres de monoye," — a 
grimly humorous phrase ; for, in the first place, 
Master Pierre has no goose, and, furthermore, 
manger de Voye, or de Voue, was a proverbial 
expression, meaning approximately "to get 
something not bargained for," or, as we say, 
"to go on a fool's errand/' or on "a wild-goose 
chase." Imagine the pleasure with which an 
early audience would have listened to this bit of 
dramatic irony, 



98 NOTES ON THE TEXT 

XII 

Page 23. "That scalawag," etc. These few 
words damn the Draper. He makes himself fair 
game, and his subsequent misfortunes are justified 
from an artistic point of view, however little 
they are justified by morality. 

XIII 

Page 26. "Guillaume." In the fifteenth 
century "Guillaume" meant not only "Will- 
iam," but also "dunce" or "gull." It would 
be easy to cite many similar applications of Eng- 
lish baptismal names. Jack -pudding, Jacka- 
napes, Tomfool, Willy, Neddy, Johnny (a town 
fop who haunts green-rooms, or any effeminate 
man-about-town), Miss Nancy, and Ealph 
Spooner will do for examples. "Chaque na- 
tion," says Montaigne (1, 46), "a quelques noms 
qui se prennent, je ne s$ay comment, en mauvaise 
part: et a nous Jehan, Guillaume, Benoit." 
Montaigne goes on to say that at a banquet given 
by Henry Duke of Normandy the guests were 
grouped at table according to their names. At 
the first table sat one hundred and ten knights 
named Guillaume. 

XIV 

Page 26. "Let's bind the bargain with a 
drink. " (In the original, Et eucore se j 'eusse dit 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 99 

— La main sur le pot.) In various parts of 
France, peasants and other persons of that class 
are still accustomed to lay their hands over a 
" pot de vin " to seal a business deal ; but who 
was to pay the publican? Could Patelin have 
got any publican to trust him ? See page 6 of 
the text. 

XV 

Page 28. " That Saturday they put you in the 
stocks. " Saturday was chosen because it was 
market-day (see Note ix). The prisoner's ig- 
nominy would thus be known, not only to his 
fellow townsmen, but also to the crowds who 
flocked in from the neighbouring country. Here 
we encounter, therefore, one of several flaws or 
inconsistencies in the plot of Patelin, Even so 
dull a fool as the Draper could hardly be ignorant 
of Patelin' s reputation ; indeed he calls him a 
scalawag, as we have seen ; nevertheless he trusts 
Patelin, and actually expects to receive payment 
and have a bite of Patelin 's goose. 

XVI 

Page 36. "This must have happened since 
sunrise, then," etc. On page 64 we learn that the 
trial takes place about six o'clock. In the fif- 
teenth century the hours had come to be reckoned 



IOO NOTES ON THE TEXT 

as they are now. Therefore the whole action of 
Patelin consumes some ten or twelve hours of day- 
light, and the first great comedy composed in a 
modern tongue observes the Unity of Time, if we 
understand that term according to traditional 
canons. In reality, the imagination needs only 
about an hour and a quarter to learn a series of 
events which occupy, with intervals not alto- 
gether easy to determine, a period lasting approxi- 
mately from rather early in the morning till dusk. 
Now, as to the Unity of Place. On the medieval 
stage the various scenes of a story were visual- 
ized, not by the shifting of scenery, but by the 
juxtaposition of all the structures necessary to 
the performance of a given piece. From the be- 
ginning of a play to its close the stage setting re- 
mained unchanged. Such, at any rate, was the 
character of the " serious drama,'' and there is 
no good reason for supposing that a wholly dif- 
ferent arrangement obtained in the performing of 
farces (see Preface as to staging). We may as- 
sume that on one side of a broad stage stood the 
Draper's shop, or some structure intended to rep- 
resent it. On the other side stood Patelin' s abode, 
designated, perhaps, by hardly more than a wall 
with a door in it (see the woodcut, page 31), and 
that this door opened upon an area representing 



NOTES ON THE TEXT IOI 

a market-place, or, at all events, a space wide 
enough to lend some plausibility to the events set 
forth in Patelin. If we grant this to be true, the 
Unity of Place, also, is observed in Patelin. The 
setting adopted by the Comedie Frangaise is un- 
questionably very different from that of the Mid- 
dle Ages, and does not observe the Unity of Place, 
if by that term we mean one and the same locality 
completely visible in every scene. 

In Patelin the Unity of Action is not marred by 
any irrelevant digression, though certain entrances 
are too timely. But this same flaw is common in 
Moliere, whose characters often appear on the 
scene with no better warrant than a "Maisle 
voila qui vient," or some other similar phrase. 
As late as Labiche unjustified entrances are still 
common ; but the most modern playwrights, when 
they are genuine artists, avoid this defect in 
dramatic construction. 

XVII 

Page 37. "Bose water," etc. In the Middle 
Ages rosewater was supposed to be efficacious in 
restoring persons who felt faint, or who had fallen 
into a swoon. Eecipes for distilling this remedy 
have been preserved by numerous works on 
medicine. 

In his essay " On Three Good Women " (ii, 35), 



102 NOTES ON THE TEXT 

Montaigne speaks of rubbing the feet as if that 
had been a common way of restoring life or 
vitality. 

XVIII 

Page 37. " Marmara, carimari, carimara." 
This gibberish seems to parody some weird for- 
mula once used by priests in performing exorcisms 
upon persons supposedly possessed. We have 
much the same sort of thing in the mild incanta- 
tion "Ena, mena, mina, mo ! Catch a nigger by 
the toe," etc., or in u Fe, fi, fo, fum ! I smell the 
blood of an Englishmun ! " As Patelin is being 
plagued by " black men," the conjecture that 
u marmara, carimari, carimara " is a burlesque of 
some formula of exorcism, seems highly plausible, 
though these particular syllables may imitate 
some rigmarole in the patter of fifteenth-century 
trick-performing mountebanks. 

XIX 

Page 37. "Away with them! away!" The 
ext reads, " Amenes les moy, amenes ! " In the 
so-called Chronique scandaleuse (a. d. 1460-1483), 
and in various other medieval texts, amener is 
more than once used for emmener. My transla- 
tion is warranted, therefore, by phonology as well 
as by common sense. 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 103 

XX 

Page 38. " A stole." When a priest had oc- 
casion to drive away the devil, it was desirable, 
if not indispensable, that he should use a stole, 
the symbol of obedience. For a detailed descrip- 
tion of this custom, which is still common in the 
Eoman Catholic Church, see my " Exorcism with 
a Stole, " in Modern Language Notes for Decem- 
ber, 1904, and April, 1905. 

XXI 

Page 40. " And my symptoms " — in the origi- 
nal : Et mon orine. Medieval physicians set great 
store by the examination of urinal symptoms. A 
large number of manuscripts treating of this sub- 
ject have come down, and literary allusions are 
common as late as the eighteenth century. 

XXII 

Page 42. "No goose. " At this period geese 
were a luxury not often relished by persons like 
our Draper, and one may imagine how he had 
set his heart on eatiug this delicacy at Patelin's 
table. See Note xi. 

XXIII 
Page 45. " A quack," etc. In the original : 
Et cest avocat potatif a trois lecons et troispseaulmes. 



104 NOTES ON THE TEXT 

" Three lessons and three psalms." Between the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Francis- 
cans began to feel that the Breviary required 
them to recite too many lessons and too many 
psalms. So they reduced the number from nine 
to three, — at least, on certain occasions only three 
lessons and three psalms were required. In the 
thirteenth century it became customary in France 
to recite only three psalms at matins throughout 
Easter, nor was this easy-going way characteris- 
tic merely of the Abbey of Fecamp, as a famous 
passage in Eabelais might lead us to suppose. 
" l According to what usage,' said Gargantua [to 
the monk], 'do you say these beautiful hours ? ' 
— ' According to the usage of Fecamp,' said the 
monk, * with three lessons and three psalms, or, 
for those who are unwilling, nothing at all.'" 
(Gargantua, 1, 41.) 

Before the days of printing, breviaries were so 
costly that they were often chained to a bench in 
the choir, and each monk or priest had to learn 
the minimum by heart. That those who knew 
only the minimum should have excited the pity 
or scorn of their more diligent brethren, and that 
their feelings should have been expressed in such 
a manner as to give rise to this proverbial taunt, 
is not contrary to the tendencies of human nature. 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 105 

The Draper could hardly have hit upon a more 
ludicrously appropriate phrase to express his con- 
temptuous indignation and his self-esteem. 

XXIV 

Page 46. "The Abbot of Ivernaux." The 
Abbey of Ivernaux, or Hivernaux, was situate 
near the hamlet called Brie-Comte-Kobert, which 
lies some twenty miles southeast of Paris, in 
whose archbishopric was the Church of Ivernaux. 
The Abbey of Ivernaux was sadly weakened by 
the wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 

But to what Abbot of Ivernaux is Patelin al- 
luding? 

In a lease dated 1441, and in another dated 
1451, one Nicolas Bottelin is spoken of as "ab- 
bot.'' Another lease, dated 1461, applies the 
title to a Jean d ? Arquevilliers. Philippe seems 
to have been the name of an Abbot of Ivernaux 
who signed a lease on 31 March, 1468. 

Whatever may be the advantage of knowing 
these names, — very barren things at best, — it is 
worth our while to learn that in 1468, the year 
before Patelin first entered an extant record, the 
Abbot of Ivernaux was no longer a power, for 
his abbacy had sunk into poverty ; yet even a 
certain wealth and influence would hardly have 



106 NOTES ON THE TEXT 

saved the Abbot of Ivernaux from being the butt 
of Patelin's somewhat lewd jocularity, and we 
may be sure that our lawyer in his sham delirium 
was not shooting an arrow at the moon. This 
abbot was presumably a gay fellow, and a worthy 
contemporary of Huguette du Hamel, who, not- 
withstanding her intimacy with Francois Villon 
and other reprobates, and although she had been 
guilty of inciting a hireling to murder, could 
still hold her position as Abbess of Port-Eoyal. 
Yet the real importance of this allusion to the 
Abbot of Ivernaux is that it seems to show that 
our farce was composed to be performed in the 
region round about Brie-Oomte-Eobert ; for it is 
unlikely that this particular abbot's fame had 
spread very far beyond the bounds of his abbacy. 

XXV 

Page 48. "Mere de diou," etc. In this and 
the following passages of dialect or jargon the 
translator was confronted by a problem of serious 
difficulty. Three courses seemed possible : (a) to 
transform Patelin into an out-and-out English 
farce, changing the names of the characters, and 
transplanting the scene to medieval England ; 
(6) to preserve the point of Guillemette's explana- 
tions by leaving Patelin' s reveries untranslated ; 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 1 07 

(c) to adopt tlie plan chosen by Albrecht Count 
Wickenbnrg, who, in his excellent verse-trans- 
lation into German (Vienna, 1883), leaves no 
foreign words save the Latin, substituting for the 
other dialects and jargons certain passages of his 
own invention, in which Patelin is made to rave, 
now like a delirious alchemist who talks incoher- 
ently of quicksilver, sulphur, etc., or like a dying 
man who pretends to see the flames of hell, as 
well as other phenomena unnecessary to mention. 
Similar approximations will be found in 
Pounder's version (1871) and in a later (un- 
dated) version by Eudoxie Dupuis. The present 
translation, however, aims at the highest degree 
of literality consistent with the use of idiomatic, 
comprehensible English, and aims, furthermore, 
to be loyal to what is not merely a farce, but also 
a document of historical importance. I doubt 
that the retention of these passages will destroy 
the reader's illusion : he will probably under- 
stand the obscurest of them quite as well as they 
were understood by Patelin' s first audience; the 
others will simply be somewhat less intelligible 
than they seemed to Frenchmen about 1464. It 
may be added that the author of Patelin has 
made these passages so long as to render them 
rather boresome/rowi a modern point of view ; for, 



108 NOTES ON THE TEXT 

even if one understands them pretty well, they 
lack a certain charm which brevity imparts. I 
have not hesitated, therefore, to shorten them ; 
but a comparison with any fifteenth-century 
edition will show the reader how the cutting was 
done. It seemed undesirable to attempt here in 
the Notes what would be a fragmentary and not 
very interesting series of translations. 

XXVI 

Page 51. "But how comes he to speak Nor- 
man." Not in the original ; added for clearness. 

XXVII 

Page 53. "Quid." Qui in the original. A 
mistake due, perhaps, to the fact that d final in 
French was generally silent as it is now, and that 
Latin was pronounced as if it were a kind of 
French. 

XXVIII 

Page 54. The original text of Guillemette's 
speech is corrupt. My translation is based on a 
temporary attempt at restoration. 

XXIX 

Page 55. "How do you like me for a 
teacher ? " — in the original, Avant votes ay je bien 
aprins. Fifteenth-century syntax allows a so- 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 109 

called masculine past participle to go with a femi- 
nine antecedent. Tons means not the Draper, 
but Guillemette. 

XXX 
Page 55. The long stage-direction describes 
how this episode of Patelin is wound up at the 
Comedie Franyaise. The medieval stage had no 
curtain, and we have no means of knowing how 
Patelin and Guillemette made themselves incon- 
spicuous at the close of this scene. 

XXXI 

Page 56. " The Shepherd/' The Shep- 
herd's entrance is too timely. Nothing in the 
plot warrants his appearance at precisely this 
instant. Similar unjustified entrances are com- 
mon in Moliere, who, as has been said (Note 
xvi), often uses some stock formula to keep a 
character from seeming to blunder in. 

XXXII 

Page 56. ' l Someone or other in striped hosen. ' ' 
This was a sergent a verge, an officer empowered 
to make arrests, effect seizures, etc. 

XXXIII 

Page 58. " By Saint Lupus." The Shep- 
herd's oath is well chosen ; for wolves were still 
a pest at this period. Saint Lupus (Saint Wolt 



IIO NOTES ON THE TEXT 

to translate his name) was called Saint Leu in 
Old French. As late as 1633 there was standing 
near that Noyon which is mentioned on page 83 
a monastery dedicated to Saint Leu, who was 
honoured, also, at Troyes in Champagne. 

XXXIV 

Page 60. " A dealer. ' ' The Shepherd does not 
name the i l dealer " ; Patelin, on his side, neglects, 
or the dramatist, for his own convenience or 
through carelessness, neglects to have Patelin 
inquire as to the dealer's identity. So Patelin, 
on arriving at the trial, is astonished to confront 
the very individual whom he has himself cheated. 
The Draper, as we have seen, had lied to Patelin 
by telling him that his whole flock had perished 
in the great frost (page 17). That our crafty 
lawyer should fail to make the Shepherd divulge 
his master's name seems incredible ; it is to this 
flaw in characterization that we owe one of the 
most comic features of the trial scene, namely the 
unexpected meeting of the Lawyer and his dupe. 

XXXV 

Page 63. " Answer nothing but ba-a-a," etc. 
In the second part of his edition of A C. Mery 
Tales and Quiche Answers (ShaJcespere Jest Books, 
page 60), Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt has reprinted 



NOTES ON THE TEXT III 

the anecdote l { Of hym that payde his dette with 
crienge bea. ' ' In this version the Shepherd is re- 
placed by a spendthrift ; otherwise the anecdote 
is nothing more nor less than a kind of disguised 
summary of the plot of Patelin from verse 1067 
(in this translation, from page 59) to the end. 
Whether this particular anecdote figured in the 
edition of the C. Mery Tales printed by John 
Eastell about 1525, Mr. Hazlitt does not say. It 
entered, at all events, into the collection printed 
by Thomas Berthelet about 1535. Assuming this 
date to be nearly correct, we may assert that our 
French farce must have been known in England 
a century before Eabelais. It was, therefore, not 
through Eabelais that Patelin began to influence 
English literature. 

The legal episodes of Patelin, as they appear in 
the C. Mery Tales, might be conceived to occur at 
almost any time and in almost any country ; for 
no names are given. In PasquiVs Jests (see Haz- 
litt, op. cit, vol. in, pp. 45, 46), of which several 
editions were printed in the first half of the 
seventeenth century, we find almost exactly the 
same story, slightly shortened and with the scene 
laid in London. The version in PasquiVs Jests is 
derived, presumably, from the earlier English 
version, and not from the French text. There 



112 NOTES ON THE TEXT 

can be no question of folklore in this matter t 
what we have is a loan, made through a literary 
channel. 

To sum up : The last third of Patelin was 
epitomized for English readers in the first third 
of the sixteenth century. But, to go further, I 
will venture the opinion that Patelin, in one or 
more of the many editions printed in France and 
in the fifteenth century, had crossed the Channel 
before 1500, and it was probably from one of 
these original texts that some more or less literary 
person derived his summary. Yet it was, I 
think, through Eabelais that the wily Patelin 
became known for the first time to a considerable 
number of people in England. See Introduction, 
near end. 

Note: — The Shepherd's baa should of course 
be absolutely natural, but should vary in pitch, 
loudness, etc., to suit the context. A clever 
mimic can make this bleat extremely effective. 

XXXVI 

Page 65. " Welcome, sir ! " The Judge has 
no reason to suppose that Patelin has a client, 
but he knows that lawyer. See the beginning 
of the piece and notice that the Judge invites 
Patelin to supper (page 82). 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 113 

XXXVII 
Page 70. " Come ! Let's stick to those 
sheep !" "Sus! Eevenons a ces ruoutons! M 
cries the Judge, and he coins one of those neat 
and useful phrases which soon make their way 
from country to country, entering the every-day 
speech of persons quite unaware to whom or what 
they are indebted. In his essay on Marlowe (Old 
English Dramatists) James Eussell Lowell says, 
"But it is high time that I should remember 
Maitre Guillaume of Patelin, and return to my 
sheep. " The mention of "Guillaume " indicates 
that Lowell had read Patelin, and that he was not 
merely borrowing the words "to return to our 
sheep " from Eabelais. In the first chapter of 
Gargantua, Eabelais says, "Betournant a nos 
moutons, je vous dis . . . " ; but it is likely 
that the nos had been substituted for the less 
coovenient ces (a homonym of ses) a good while 
before Eabelais read Patelin. Owing to facetious- 
ness rather than to ignorance, moutons is usually 
rendered not by "sheep," but by "muttons," — 
a mistranslation which neatly indicates the prov- 
erb's Gallic origin. 

XXXVIII 

Page 83. "Brainless" (Esservele) figured, I 
suppose, in some farce or morality no longer 



114 NOTES ON THE TEXT 

extant In "Mr. Golightly," "Dobbin," etc., 
not to mention many allegorical names in the 
older comedy, English furnishes parallels. 

XXXIX 

Page 83. Of Jean de Noyon nothing is known 
save what we may infer from the text of Patelin. 
Assuredly he was a real character, contemporary 
with the audience for which Patelin was first per- 
formed, and one may surmise that he was more 
or less notorious, and that he bore a strong, per- 
haps a comic, likeness to the actor who first 
played the part of Patelin. But this is guess- 
work. Whatever the truth may be, it is highly 
improbable that this Jean belonged to the noble 
family having its seat at Noyon ; for this family 
seems to have died out before the fifteenth cen- 
tury ; nor do I find a Jean de Noyon among the 
few Fools whose names have been handed down. 

XL 

Page 85. Why has the Shepherd remained? 
Simply to furnish another scene, one of the best 
scenes of all ; but obviously Lambkin had a good 
chance to escape when the Judge dismissed him. 
In real life so canny a rogue would not fail to 
make himself scarce as soon as possible. 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 115 

XLI 

Page 90. Here occurs the first bit of moraliz- 
ing in Patelin ; but the Lawyer is not repentant ; 
he is crestfallen at being outwitted by a shep- 
herd : that is all. His chagrin is followed by a 
touch of anger, yet it is only a touch, and we may 
fancy a sardonic grin passing over his lean 
countenance as he looks again at the " sheep in 
clothing" who has so admirably carried out his 
own instructions. 

Genuine nioralizations, such as one finds in the 
younger Dumas and in many other modern plays, 
are exceedingly rare in the old French farces. 

XLII 

Page 90. "If he finds me, I'll forgive him ! " 
These are the last words in all the old editions. 
They break the Shepherd's promise (page 63), 
but our dramatist, knowing human nature and 
drawing it with a sure hand, leaves his work 
with no weak or awkward ending. It is a skil- 
ful stroke to have the Shepherd behave like a 
man, after he has so ably behaved like a sheep. 
What becomes of him? We imagine that he 
continues his misdeeds till, after a while, he is 
nabbed, brought to book, and, having no Patelin 
to defend him, is properly hanged. 



Notes on the Cuts 



Notes on the Cuts 



The edition of Patelin published by Genin in 
1854 contains inaccurate reproductions of five of 
Levet's illustrative woodcuts : to wit, the first, 
second, third, fourth and sixth. But with char- 
acteristic whimsicality — or carelessness — Genin 
borrowed the first and fourth from an inferior 
edition of Patelin by Jehan Treperel. 1 The trial 
scene G6nin got from Beneaut's Patelin (A. D. 
1490), though he could have copied the original 
cut in Levet's edition. Beneaut's two almost 
identical cuts of the trial scene were not made 
from the block used by Levet, as some writers 
have stated; for Levet's cut has not the same 
dimensions as the two in Beneaut's edition. 

^he Treperel Patelin, from which Genin seems to have 
borrowed his cuts, must have appeared after 13 October, 
1499 ; for its colophon reads thus : Imprime a Paris par 
Jehan treperel demourant a la rue sainct iacques pres sainct 
yues a lymaige saint laurens. Treperel had been obliged to 
remove to the above address after the fall of the Pont Kostre 
Dame (13 October, 1499). 

119 



120 NOTES ON THE CUTS 

In 1870 Baillieu, "marchant libraire sur le 
quay des grads augustins a Paris, 7 ' to quote his 
pseudo-archaic colophon, published in the so- 
called " Bibliotheque gothique 77 what he appar- 
ently intended to pass off as a facsimile, or, at 
any rate, as a reprint of Levet's Patelin. Not 
only does Baillieu 7 s edition contain many gross 
textual blunders, but it so distorts Levetfs cuts 
as to give a wholly false impression. In a word, 
Baillieu 7 s Patelin is an imposture and even worse 
than worthless. 

Inasmuch as no one else has attempted in mod- 
ern times, in so far as I am aware, to reproduce 
Levet 7 s woodcuts, the facsimiles in this volume 
can rightly be called the first that have ever been 
made. They differ from the originals in the re- 
spect that no attempt has been made to imitate 
Levet's paper, or to reproduce the marks of age. 
Certain imperfections in Levet 7 s cuts indicate, 
apparently, either that the only known exemplar 
of his edition was one of the last to be printed, 
or that the paper was not properly wetted. I 
may add that Levet's sixth illustration, to judge 
by the Shepherd 7 s beard and other inconsisten- 
cies of drawing, can hardly have been made by 
the engraver who executed the other illustrations. 
See the Preface. 



NOTES ON THE CUTS 121 

The printer's mark of Pierre Levet appears on 
tlie first page of his Patelin, bearing no date, but 
printed between 'Nov. 10, and Dec. 20, 1489, and 
serves as a frontispiece to the present volume. 
Levet put this mark in his edition of Villon 
printed after his Patelin, late in 1489. 

As to the value of Levet's illustrations of 
Patelin, see the Preface. 



$rice. 50 €ent# €acij 



TUP MAfilSTRATF ^ arce in Tto' ee Acts. Twelve males, four 
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^ females. Costumes, modern ; scenery, 

three interiors. Plays a full evening. 

THE SECOND MRS. TANQUERAY ™L*ZZ^L^ 

tumes, modern ; scenery, three interiors. Plays a full evening. 

SWEET LAVENDER Comed y to T* 1169 A cts - Seven males, four 
females. Scene, a single interior; costumes, 
modern. Plays a full evening. 

THF TIMFS Comedy to F°ur Acts. Six males, seven females. 
Scene, a single interior ; costumes, modern. Plays a 
full evening. 

THE WEAKER SEX Comed y to T^* 96 Acts. Eight males, eight 
females. Costumes, modern ; scenery, two 
interiors. Plays a full evening. 

A WIFE WITHOUT A SMII F Comed y ln Three Acts. Five 
A ITIIX fflinUUl A M1L,B vudBB9 f Smtmti}Mt Costumes, 

modern ; scene, a single interior. Plays a full evening. 



Sent prepaid on receipt of price by 

^aitet % isafcer & Company 

No. 5 Hamilton Place, Boston, Massachusetts 



0_Q22:WM' 9 



%ty William Garten euttton 
of $ia?a 

thrice, 15 Cents? <£arf> 



AS Yftll I IITF IT Comed y *» **▼© Acts. Thirteen males, four 
AO 1VU M"L ll females. Costumes, picturesque ; scenery, va- 
ried. Plays a full evening. 

r 4 Mil IF £> rama in Five Acts. Nine males, five females. Cos- 
\sAuUL(LtLi tumes, modern ; scenery, varied. Plays a full evening. 

IlWlOMAR ^ la y in Five jA - cts - Thirteen males, three females. 
in vl UiTlfUX Scenery varied ; costumes, Greek. Plays a full evening. 

MARY STFIAHT Tragedy in Five Acts. Thirteen males, four fe- 
iuiilVl J tvi\S\l males, and supernumeraries. Costumes*, of the 
period ; scenery, varied and elaborate. Plays a full evening. 

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE £SS?&S£&£S: gSSJSl 

picturesque ; scenery varied. Plays a full evening. 

VirHFI IFII ^^y in Five Acts. Fifteen males, two females. Scen- 
l\l WJlLlylLU er y elaborate ; costumes of the period. Plays a full 
evening. 

THF RIV AT S Comedy in Five Acts. Nine males, five females. 
1111* III i ALoJ Scenery varied; costumes of the period. Plays a 
full evening. 

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUEB 2K^ffl^8J55^ 

ried ; costumes of the period. Plays a full evening. 

TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT TOO WILL SSSflUJEK 

three females. Costumes, picturesque ; scenery, varied. Plays a 
full evening. 



Sent prepaid on receipt of price by 

Salter #. BaSer & Company 

No. 5 Hamilton Place, Boston, Massachusetts 



